YBS Band
24-Oct-2007Conductors: Morgan Griffiths and Richard Evans
Bella Tromba
Regent Hall, London
Saturday 20th October
Brass Arts Festival 2007
The final concert for this year’s Brass Arts Festival turned out to be a celebration for the YBS Band. The departure of Professor David King meant a new beginning for the band this year and a new beginning that in fairness hasn’t been easy at times.
With true Yorkshire grit and determination though the band has come through a very difficult ten months with Morgan Griffiths as Resident Conductor, whilst Richard Evans has brought all his experience and knowledge to direct on the contest stage. On Saturday they produced a cracking performance of ‘Music for Battle Creek’ that was rewarded by the judges with fifth place. Things are now well and truly looking up.
Knowing you’ve played well is one thing, but getting reward for it from the adjudicators is another. It has been tough, but like other bands, YBS have bounced back and the result in London is testament to the amount of work that has been put in from Morgan Griffiths, Richard Evans and the band.
Morgan and Richard shared the conducting duties between them for this concert; Morgan conducting the opening and closing pieces with Richard doing everything in between.
The concert opened with two contrasting upbeat pieces. Firstly, Sandy Smith’s arrangement of Jim Swearington’s ‘Valero’ featuring the cornet section and Sian Linney on flugel. This was followed by a very impressive interpretation of Bernstein’s overture, ‘Candide’ that contained excellent ensemble work.
’Khovanschina’ might not be the most familiar of Mussorgsky’s musical output but it’s been arranged for band by Gordon Langford, and here YBS really did transport the audience to a cold Russian morning as the sun was rising.
YBS featured two soloists during the concert. Alex Kerwin took over the principal cornet seat in the summer and on the night she held the audience in the palm of her hand with a cracking performance of ‘Slavische Fantasie’ – the very piece that gave Alex the British Open Solo title in 2003.
Mike Kilroy had earlier in the day played with Desford at the Royal Albert Hall but being a good friend of the band he deputised in the principal euphonium seat for Morgan Griffiths. Mike’s solo spot was the popular ‘Carnival Cocktail’ – variations on that most familiar of tunes ‘Carnival of Venice’ with Mike giving a classy performance in his own imitable style.
Richard Evans on the night was just Richard Evans – the ‘legend’ as he was referred to by Morgan Griffiths, just had an absolute ball telling jokes, recognising friends from all around the world in the audience (where he took time out specifically to thank Rex Richardson for helping YBS with their preparations for the Nationals the previous Tuesday) and conducting the band.
In addition to fronting Mike Kilroy’s solo, Richard led the way in ‘Comedy Tonight’, Brodsky’s ‘I’ll Walk with God’ and selections from ‘Windows of the World’: ‘Amazonia’, ‘Rainforest’ – that featured some fine solo and duet work from Kate Eggleshaw and Rob Richardson and ‘Drums of Thunder’. Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s ‘Where Eagles Sing' (yet again!) was given the Richard Evans treatment, as was the moving music to ‘Schindler’s List’.
Joining YBS during the concert was the trumpet quartet, Bella Tromba; four very elegant and charming ladies who met at the Royal Academy of Music in 2004.
Their repertoire covers all musical genres from the contemporary to classic ballads. Having performed in the Friday afternoon concert with Rex Richardson, the talented ladies demonstrated their versatility with music from Bach, Purcell and Elgar through to Goedicke’s ‘Concert Etude’, ‘Danny Boy’ and Gershwin’s ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’.
To conclude the festival and this concert, Morgan Griffiths led the band through Kenneth Downie’s sensitive ‘In Perfect Peace’, some fun and games with the trombone section in the old-standard, ’76 Trombones’ and a stirring ‘Procession to the Cathedral’.
With the audience insistent on more, Morgan stepped aside to let Richard Evans, to conduct the encore, the march, ‘The Waltonian’ that brought to an end an excellent evening’s entertainment from a band who can be immensely proud of their achievements in 2007.
Malcolm Wood
