Music For Everyone

Hadleigh Temple Band
Bandmaster: Ken Hillson
Featuring: Richard Phillips (piano)
Hadleigh Temple
Saturday 7th March

The concert in aid of the Mayor of Castle Point’s charities has become an annual fixture in Hadleigh Temple’s concert programme. 

Previous events have taken the form of a Last Night of the Proms but there was a change this year, honouring a promise to the band that there would be a break from the Proms music. 

Audience size

The change to the title Music for Everyone did have an effect on the size of the audience, but nevertheless a crowd of 200 or so gathered to raise money for the local children’s hospice, Little Havens, and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

The band opened proceedings with Richard Spicer’s lively march “Concord”, written to mark the move of his Corps to a new location. Incorporating the songs “Sing and make music” and “Give thanks” it put all sections of the band through their paces, particularly the euphoniums. 

Measured account

This was followed by a measured account of the “Overture to the Magic Flute” by Mozart. Arranged by Michael Kenyon, a former Bandmaster at Hadleigh, there was some fine solo work throughout the band, with accents and dynamics kept within the context of the piece.

Flugel player Alex Campbell, recently appointed as Young People’s Bandleader, then rose from his seat to present Darrol Barry’s setting of “Where is love?” (Lionel Bart). 

Alex, who was taking a deserved break from rehearsals for the forthcoming Area contest with Becontree, displayed a full, warm tone, and the carefully judged accompaniment ensured the solo line came across clearly. 

Full blooded

Staying with the world of musical theatre, the band ended its first slot with a full-blooded account of “Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera” (Andrew Lloyd Webber, arr William Himes).

The guest soloist for the evening was Richard Phillips, Bandmaster at Kettering but best known for his prowess on the piano, both as soloist and accompanist. For his first item, he astounded the audience with his performance of the first movement of the Grieg “Piano Concerto”, backed by a recording of the band accompaniment. 

Immortal words

It was certainly not, in Eric Morecambe’s immortal words “. . . all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order” but an admirable account of a testing piece, making light of the difficulties of playing to a cd which, as Richard pointed out afterwards, was probably preferable to an under-rehearsed accompaniment played live.

Richard’s has produced a few solo recordings, and his second contribution, a version of Bramwell Coles lilting march “The Flag of Freedom”, was taken from the latest release. Before playing, he spoke of watching Chatham band return to the hall from the open air meeting when he was four years old, and how it had instilled in him a love of brass bands. 

The backing track started things off with the lower parts having been pre-recorded, then Richard entered with the melody and upper parts, with brass (in the form of members of his own band at Kettering) joining in towards the end.

Encouraged

Turning once more to Hadleigh Band, the audience members were encouraged to count how many tunes they could identify in Peter Graham’s “A London Celebration”, originally written when Peter was Bandmaster at Regent Hall. 

By co-incidence, the current Rink bandmaster, Stephen Hannover, had been present at Hadleigh during the week prior to the concert, and had taken the band through the piece. 

It certainly proved a crowd-pleaser, with the audience joining in at several points as they watched the Powerpoint presentation depicting various London landmarks that had been put together by Band Secretary Brendan Still. 

Atmospheric

Starting with an atmospheric depiction of the Thames shrouded in fog, various familiar tunes emerged, including “A Nightingale snag in Berkeley Square” featuring the horns, and a suitably swaggering rendition of “Maybe it’s because it’s a Londoner” from the trombones and tuba, before the tempo increased for the upbeat finale.

After the exuberance of Cockney London, “One Voice” (Barry Manilow arr Ray Farr) opened with the solo voice of Anthony Sommerville on euphonium. Anthony, a member of the Grenadier Guards band, performed sterling service all evening, despite the fact that a fortnight spent away on military activities had left him with little or no practice time in the run-up to the concert. 

Uplifting

Following the uplifting conclusion to “One Voice” the congregation were invited to join in the song “Simply trusting” as Richard played the familiar melody “Will ye no’ come back again?”

The first half then concluded with the band playing Jan van Kraeydonck’s rock version of Bach’s “Toccata”, featuring Ben Still on drum kit.

Slick performance

After a brief interval, during which several audience members availed themselves of the opportunity to purchase Richard’s cd, the band presented the “Grand March from Aida” (Verdi, arr Dennis Wright”) before Anthony Sommerville’s slick performance of “Allegro Spiritoso” (Senaille arr William Himes).

Richard Phillips had spent some time during the afternoon resolving various technical problems regarding his accompaniments, but there was a Les Dawson moment when the backing track for “Let a little sunshine in your heart” came out about a quarter tone adrift from the piano. 

Quick rethink

Following a quick rethink, Richard continued with the bouncy “Joy, peace and happiness” before turning to one of the Salvation Army musicals and John Larsson’s “Love cannot fail”, which built to a thrilling climax before dying away to nothing. 

His last planned piece (for piano alone) was the Russ Conway-style “Count your blessings”, but he then provided a moving coda in “It is well with my soul”, which was greeted in thoughtful silence before the applause erupted.

Contrasting

Howard Evans’ “Chassidic Dance” draws upon the music of the east, with contrasting sections both in terms of dynamics and tempo. After some uncertainty in the opening bars the band caught the spirit of the music, which ended with a resounding “Hoy!”

Paul Sharman’s setting of “Here is love” led into the scripture reading, brought by band Sergeant John Ashworth, after which the Mayor of Castle Point expressed his thanks to all who had taken part.

The evening closed with a dash through “Trepak” (Tchaikovsky arr Keith Wilkinson) followed by William Himes’ transcription of Wagner’s music for “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral” from the opera “Lohengrin”. 

The solo and ensemble work was well controlled, as was the build-up in both intensity and volume towards the end.

Peter Bale

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