Brass bands can find it all too easy to fall into a form of ‘concert safety mode’ when considering repertoire for their next stage appearance.
The tried and tested formula that has invariably seen variations on the march, overture, solo etc format can sound tired and uninspiring – even if played well, so why not be a little more adventurous and just spice up the existing formula with a few slightly more left field choices?
These are a few we came up with in the 4BR office (and some are harder than others), but we think they all just take the listener off in a slightly different direction or two without getting completely lost....
As Monty Python used to say ...’And now for something completely different’....
The Dreaded Groove and Hook (Simon Dobson)
Duration: Approx 5.00
Simon Dobson's wicked up tempo number is the perfect opener if you want to attract a slightly younger element to your future concerts.
And we say slightly too – as acid house music has been around a fair old time now – and those free-wheeling hedonists who enjoyed the music the first time around are now most probably middle class suburbanites with 2.4 children and a liking for the latest Alan Partridge film.
So why not get them to recall the days when they didn’t have to worry about the mortgage rates with this corker - brimming with its Jamiroquai and The Youngblood Brass Band roots.
Catchy, pulsating and full of spirit, it’s a bit tricky to capture just the right style, but if you do it’s an absolute hoot.
Big smiley faces are guaranteed.
For more information go to: http://www.fabermusic.com/Repertoire-Details.aspx?ID=425
Tilbury Point (Nigel Clarke)
Duration: Approx 5.25 mins
Nigel Clarke’s ‘whizz-bang’ overture is musical portrait of the legendary buccaneering pirate Captain Kidd and his most horrid demise.
It’s jammed packed full of character and imagination and comes with the added bonus of Martin Westlake’s brilliant scene setting poem.
Get a gravelly voiced actor to narrate the grisly tale of how Kidd’s entrepreneurial crime spree came to end with him being captured and hung, before his corpse was dipped in tar and put on display in a cage swinging at the entry to the mouth of the River Thames, and you will have caught the imagination of concert goers both young and old before a note has been blown.
It is tricky and a bit of a fizzer, but its well within the capabilities of a good First or Second Section band – whilst the audience will be signing the theme song to Captain Pugwash all the way home...
For more information go to: http://www.nigel-clarke.com
Abide with Me (Paul McGhee)
Duration: Approx 4.30 mins
Paul McGhee is one of the most original and inventive compositional voices for brass band in the world – and this superb little gem shows you why.
Written for Belgian euphonium superstar Glenn Van Looy and first performed at the 2013 Festival of Brass in Manchester, it is a darkly austere take on one of the world’s most famous lyrical melodies.
Soon to be published, it’s technically within the scope of high quality, ambitious performers.
The musical key is to get the balance between the solo line and the sparse accompaniment just right.
If you do, it sends a shiver down the spine.
For more information go to: http://http://www.paulhindmarsh.com/
Flight (Mario Burki)
Duration: Approx 9.00 mins
We first heard Mario Burki’s work at the Swiss National Championships in Montreux in 2010.
There it was played by the bands competing in the Fourth Division and it certainly made an immediate impact with its bold, colourful evocation of a pretty hair-raising Alpine journey in a small propeller powered Piper Comanche plane.
From a troubled take off to triumphant landing via a few heart stopping moments when a storm stops the engine, it’s a witty, descriptive piece that requires thought, purpose and the ability to create atmosphere (helped by some clever percussion led special effects).
There is something for every player to do in the ensemble, and although the technical demands are not overtly troubling, it will still take a bit of playing to get off the ground, even if it might stop a few people getting on the next cheap RyanAir flight to Switzerland...
For more information go to: http://www.mariobuerki.ch/kompositionen/
Freaks! (Gavin Higgins)
Duration: Approx 12.00 mins
‘Freaks!’ was originally written for trombonist for Lisa Sarasini and first performed in 2006.
It is a flamboyant, brilliantly conceived showpiece solo, inspired by the 1932 Tod Browning film of the same name, but perhaps also by the intensely humane book, ‘Mutants’ by Armand Marie Leroi and even the celebrated film ‘The Elephant Man’.
You can almost taste the rancid Victorian flea infested circus air, as you are invited to ‘Roll up... See the Freaks’, before meeting in six short scenes, the ‘forms, varieties and errors of the human body’.
‘The Amazing Cleopatra – Queen of the Air’; ‘Goobble, Gooble one of us – The Wedding Party’; ‘The Fall of Cleopatra’; ‘The Freaks take revenge’ and ‘The Duck Lady’.
Full of dark humour and musical characterisation, it takes a very high quality trombone soloist to play it – but if they can, they deserve to run off and join Billy Smart’s circus.
For more information go to: http://www.fabermusic.com/Repertoire-Details.aspx?ID=6871
When Worlds Collide (or Little Green Men in Intergalactic Spaceships with Rayguns and Phasers) (Nigel Clarke)
Duration: Approx 18.00 mins
If you really want a concert work that is literally out of this world, then you cannot better Nigel Clarke’s amazing homage to the 1950’s sci-fi B movie.
Beware though – this is one heck of a piece of compositional inventiveness.
It may appear to wear its inspiration lightly, but in fact it asks immense questions of musical style and technique.
Unlike the films that inspired it, this is an ‘A list’ blockbuster (a European Championship own choice work in fact) that only very good top section bands can hope to fully conquer.
That said, with plenty of hard graft most competent championship level outfits can just about beat off the threat of alien assimilation by the Hideous Sun Demon, the Brain Eaters and the Mysterians, and even the Astounding She-Monster and the 50 Foot Woman.
All the tricks of the trade can be employed in concert mode too – from the sound of old Star Trek doors to thunder sheets and harmonic whirlies, ray guns, bubble machines, sirens and even remote controlled flying saucers!
With a fantastic introductory poem from Martin Westlake to set the scene, just let your imagination run riot (the piece is written in easily definable sections) and get whole families to be part of an out of this world experience like no other.
For more information go to: http://www.nigel-clarke.com
