Conductors: Jessica Sneeringer; Mareika Gray
Soloists: Jennifer Oliverio; Ashley Hall-Tighe; Bente Illvold; Gail Robertson
2025 RNCM International Brass Band Festival
RNCM Manchester
Saturday 25th January

Following the appearance of Brass Band Treize Etoiles in 2024, the inclusion this year of the Athena Brass Band from the USA further enhanced the meritorious international ethos of the RNCM Festival. 

Led by Jessica Sneeringer (with guest conductor Mareika Gray) the outstanding centrepiece came with ‘The Ghosts of Industry’,  a darkly emotive work from Lucy Pankhurst reflecting on the visible as well as invisible effects of de-industrialisation.  

Visceral tone poem

This was no timid memorialisation to home town nostalgia – more a visceral tone poem whose musical lines were embedded with a pointed eloquence that spoke of the communal emptiness felt by the erosion and erasure of landmarks, both large and small.

Of hopes and aspirations too, with the crushing of optimism when secure employment is blown away (the muffled sound of four Power Station cooling towers being felled) or when the luck of finding love under the glitterball of a local dance club is shattered into a thousand pieces by a wrecker’s ball. 

This was no timid memorialisation to home town nostalgia – more a visceral tone poem whose musical lines were embedded with a pointed eloquence that spoke of the communal emptiness felt by the erosion and erasure of landmarks, both large and small.

Led with innate understanding by the MD (the percussion and tuba teams were outstanding) a sense of arterial resilience also flowed deep into the soul of the music, ending with the flickering light of a forlorn monument to community cohesion now in desperate need of being reignited in hope. 

Fizzy optimism

Perhaps that which was left in ‘Pandora’s Box’  will be felt again with the fizzy optimism that flowed from the ensemble into the audience in Naomi Styles’ pulsating concert opener.

It was followed by the first of a high class quartet of soloists; Jennifer Oliverio’s ‘Silver Backed Fox’  coming to life with nocturnal beauty and suave flugel cunning, alert and agile but with a killer’s bite to call on when required. Defined elegance too from Ashley Hall-Tighe in ‘Abrazo’;  her focused tonality tempered by a swaggering razor-edged articulation - like a tango dancer with a stiletto surreptitiously tucked away to ward off unwanted admirers. 

Defined elegance too from Ashley Hall-Tighe in ‘Abrazo’;  her focused tonality tempered by a swaggering razor-edged articulation - like a tango dancer with a stiletto surreptitiously tucked away to ward off unwanted admirers. 

Nordic tenderness came with the touching rendition of Elisabeth Vannebo’s ‘Ned I vester soli glader’  by euphonium duet of Gail Robertson and Bente Illvold (conducted by Mareika Gray). Robertson’s own ‘Persistence Fanfare and March’  had a distinctive sense of American brio about it, driven with poise and purpose.

Colourful exploration

The second major work featured was Ingebjorg Vilhelmsen’s ‘The Cosmographic Mystery’  - a colourful exploration of Johannes Kepler’s defence of heliocentrism (the earth orbits the sun rather than the other way round) through the terms of the five ‘platonic solids’.  

So too Kelly Marie Murphy’s ‘O Frabjous Day, Alice Slays!’  to close a hugely satisfying concert - and a wonderfully appropriate bit of a metaphorical Jabberwocky slaying of outdated attitudes and nonsensical opinions that Jessica Sneeringer and Athena Brass continue to be at the forefront of.

Thankfully you didn’t need to be Prof Brian Cox to understand the musical language as Jessica Sneeringer authoritatively explored the geometric connections, energised twists and bold statements of intent backed by a band in equally confident manner.  It may not have led you any closer to fully understanding Keppler’s thesis, but it was great fun nonetheless.

So too Kelly Marie Murphy’s ‘O Frabjous Day, Alice Slays!’  to close a hugely satisfying concert - and a wonderfully appropriate bit of a metaphorical Jabberwocky slaying of outdated attitudes and nonsensical opinions that Jessica Sneeringer and Athena Brass continue to be at the forefront of.

Iwan Fox