SLFB & LNEFB at Hadleigh May 2024
Hadleigh Temple proved to be an ideal venue for a joint concert by SLFB and the London North East Fellowship Band, the hall easily accommodating both groups and a sizeable congregation.
SLFB provided a rousing programme opener, Herbert Booth’s march ‘The Golden Crown’ which settled any nerves and facilitated some calibration of the hall acoustics. In contrast the initial contribution from LNEFB, ‘Be Thou Our Vision’ (Andrew Wainwright), a richly harmonic arrangement based around the traditional Irish melody Slane, created a sombre atmosphere for the opening prayer offered by Roger Gadsden.
After a few words of welcome Derick Kane introduced the SLFB ‘magnum opus’ of the evening, his own composition ‘Durham Snapshots’, a musical souvenir of a visit to the city. Despite being a substantial work, it has proved to be popular with audiences, it’s accessibility greatly enhanced by Graham Kinsley’s accompanying visuals.
LNEFB responded with some ‘home grown’ music of their own. ‘Tumblin’ Down’, from the pen of their euphonium Keith Manners, was a swing-style treatment of Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho, played with appropriate panache by Flugel soloist, Bev Manners.
The original concept for the evening had been as a tribute to Dave Harrison who uniquely occupied the soprano cornet chair in both bands for many years until his untimely Promotion to Glory in March 2023. Nevertheless, in a time of remembrance, Major Cliff Bradbury (executive officer for LNEFB) took the opportunity to recall each of the players that band had lost in recent years.
SLFB then featured Adrian Horwood with another memorable performance of the euphonium tour de force ‘Star Lake Variations’ (Paul Sharman)
before LNEFB took us back to the late 1950’s with ‘Arise My Soul’ by the then Captain Dean Goffin, a composition in which the hymn tune Darwells is fully exploited within the classical structure of a prelude and fugue.
As a further tribute to Dave Harrison, Derick introduced his recently written soprano cornet solo ‘Armadale’, evoking a cherished memory of Dave playing the tune whilst on a visit to the Isle of Skye. The band was delighted that Jeremy Davis was able to be back with us to play the solo thereby taking a significant step on his road to recovery following major heart surgery in March.
Sam Creamer’s ‘Amazing’ in the upbeat style for which he is recognised, was the next contribution from LNEFB contrasted with SLFB’s sensitive playing of ‘Burdens are lifted’ (DK).
LNEFB completed their individual items with two comparatively short pieces, ‘Canzona’ (Giovanni Gabrieli arr. Martin Cordner) and ‘Prelude on ‘Abbot’s Leigh’’ (Geoffrey Nobes). For their finale SLFB played ‘Sound out the Proclamation’ (Eric Ball).
A brief congregational song then facilitated the necessary re-arrangement of chairs to enable the massed bands to play the march ‘Montreal Citadel’ (Norman J. Audoire), which received the most enthusiastic applause of the evening, ‘Thy Tenderest Blessing’ (Stephen Wood) and Brian Bowen’s meditation ‘My Comfort and Strength’. Based on George Herbert’s psalm paraphrase ‘The God of love my Shepherd is’ it remains a deceptively challenging work, but a reasonably tidy performance was achieved, the united band resources enabled full gusto to be given to the triumphant final iteration of the tune.
The evening concluded with the George Marshall march ‘Mighty to Save’ and the proceeds from a retiring collection were donated to Haven Hospices.
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