One of the great musical traditions in danger of irrevocable decline in the UK is the combination of brass band and male voice choir. 

Once a staple part of joint concert presentations, the opportunities for two great amateur institutions regularly joining forces is getting depressingly less and less, as the genres become increasingly isolated from each other. It is fast becoming an endangered musical species.

Invitation

The invitation from one of South Wales’s leading male choral ensembles was therefore eagerly taken up by the British Open champion as they provided an appreciative local audience with the rare chance to hear why it is a combination that works so well together.

Nothing quite stirs the loins as the sound of brass and voice on the great melancholic Welsh hymnals such as ‘Gwahoddiad’ and ‘Morte Christe’ - signalling a deeply satisfying spasm of warmth to flow through the veins as balanced timbres trigger the emotional synapses both in the heart and mind.

Counterpoint

On this occasion it also provided a wonderful counterpoint to the fizz and vibrancy of a band on fine form under MD Ian Porthouse; incorporating the suave mid American thump of Lionel Ritchie’s ‘All Night Long’ to open, through to the passionate splendour of Peter Graham’s ‘Shine As The Light’ to close.

In between there was a quartet of highly polished soloists in Dewi Griffiths, Danny Winder, Gavin Pritchard and Matthew White; with ‘People’, ‘Eyes of a Child’, ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘’Neath Dublin Skies’, delivered with showy aplomb.  Sparkling ensemble topping was added with the usual bite sized bon-bons of ‘Folk Festival’, ‘Czardas’ and ‘Blackbird Special’. 

Classy

Latest release material from their new CD ‘Travels’ was featured with the bold march ‘Call of the Brave’, with the classy playing of ‘Nightingale Dances’, ‘The Smile’ and ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ balanced against the Prussian bombast of ‘Old Comrades’, which in this neck of the political woods tends to send a shiver down the spine of fellow travellers of the left as well as any local Germanic immigrants.

Classic

The choir ensured they kept their fan base happy with the excellent delivery of the hymn settings of ‘Rachie’ and ‘Arwelfa’ alongside some surprisingly sprightly 1960s Beach Boys and even ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, before the joint forces rounded things off with those classic pieces of brass and voice.

A happy clappy whip through by the Open Champion of ‘Can’t nobody do me like Jesus’ also sent the audience home past the local Methodist and Baptist chapels with an evangelical spring in their step.

Iwan Fox