Persimmon Homes Hepworth Band

In aid of St. Gemma's Hospice
Conductor: Mark Bentham
Leeds Parish Church
Saturday February 4th.

The thumping American march ‘Lights Out' opened this charity concert in front of a large audience in support this worthy cause. The acoustics in this superb church are well suited to bands with the listener having no problems in hearing all the detail, and that was apparent with a clear and clasy bit if work from the band.

Robert Westacott, the bands principal cornet chose the lovely solo ‘Shining Waters' by Huug Sketete and once again showed why he is one of the band movements finest players. He produced a lovely warm sound alongside fine lyrical playing with sensitive accompaniments from the band, which all contributed to a fine performance.

Peter Graham is without doubt one of the finest composers in the band movement and in his superb ‘Journey To The Centre Of The Earth' which he wrote for the Black Dyke Band he takes the listener on a journey of adventure to Iceland. This classic story by Jules Verne is very atmospheric in content with the explorers entering the volcano and venturing deeper in to the bowels of the earth. The band captured the mood of the music well with some fine contributions from soprano, cornet, trombone and flugel. This is great music, which went down well with the audience who responded with loud applause at the end and it also showed that the band are very much in the latter stages of preparation for the forthcoming Regional Contest at Bradford.

‘Three Antiphonal Dances' followed with the bands octet featuring in a Ballet, Rondo and Dance The music is light in content and a nice contrast to the programme which was followed by the band in a piece entitled ‘Simply Grand Minuet' by PDQ Bach' with some players just using there mouthpieces and even a hosepipe!. It amused the audience and was certainly different.

The first half ended with the ‘Interlude' and ‘Finale' to Philip Sparke's ‘Year of the Dragon' with Yvonne Embury on solo trombone producing excellent dynamic control in the ‘Interlude' which led to a great finale with good technique all round the band, taken at a very quick tempo.

‘Peel Park from ‘Lowry Sketchbook' by Philip Wilby opened the second half with the band completely at ease in this music, although more dynamic contrast was needed at times even though it moved along at a nice bright tempo.

Rebecca Landon on solo horn then gave a nice performance of the ‘Piper Of Dundee' by Kenneth Downie and this young lady plays with a great confidence and style and is a player who projects her sound well. This was most enjoyable.

Music from Japan in an arrangement by Toshiyuki Nizzuma, a member of the bands bass section, of ‘Tanabata The Seventh Night Of July', which certainly captured the audience's imagination, and this was followed by the cornet section in Harry James ‘Trumpet Blues And Cantabile', a piece that certainly enhances any concert.
 
Music by Brodsky arranged cleverly by Goff Richards in ‘I'll Walk with God' was a nice contrast with the concert ending with the ‘Symphonic Dances' from ‘West Side Story' by Bernstein arranged by Eric Crees, enthralling the audience with this dynamic music featuring ‘America', ‘Somewhere' and ‘Maria' - a fitting end to a very enjoyable concert.  As an encore the band played Arlens ‘Get Happy'.

This had been a quite demanding programme chosen by Mark Bentham the Musical Director and on the whole the band had done it justice.  They should be confident on this form of doing well come Bradford and beyond.
 
David Tinker

^back to top