Conductor: Ian Porthouse
Soloist: Owen Yarrow
Elgar International Festival of Brass
The Bradshaw Hall
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Sunday 7th June 

The opening concert to a long, but musically engaging day in Birmingham was provided by the conservatoire students. 

Despite the unconnected link to the event’s featured composer that came with Tamsin Crook’s ‘A Spark Forgotten’,  Philip Sparke (who was in attendance) would surely have admired the cleverly amalgamated youthful adventure scored by the then 17-year-old in her vibrant concert opener.

Artistic note

Collective admiration in abundance came for the featured soloist and first year student, Owen Yarrow (above), with Toshiro Mayuzumi’s ‘Concertino for Xylophone and Band’. 

Originally with orchestral accompaniment, the brass band version is understandably rather limited and heavy in supporting colour. However, the sympathetic dynamic handling of the MD and the soloist’s mature ability to create stylish character allowed the optimistic feel and driving pulse of the opening ‘Allegro’  to come through. 

the sympathetic dynamic handling of the MD and the soloist’s mature ability to create stylish character allowed the optimistic feel and driving pulse of the opening ‘Allegro’  to come through. 

The calmer Balinese sentiments of the central ‘Adagietto’  were also shaped with texture and lineal phrasing, before a fleet-footed ‘Presto’,  embossed a solo performance of considerable artistic note.

Sea Haze

It was followed by Gavin Higgins’ atmospheric take on the Welsh folk song ‘Ar Lan Yr Mor’; its melancholic ‘Hiraeth’ sense of longing led by a fine plaintive flugel voice that drifted like a sea haze in the air. 

The finale, jubilant and energetic gained in recapitulated momentum to round off a programme of ambition and understanding.

With the ensemble bolstered by a quartet of players from Tredegar Band, Philip Sparke’s ‘Partita’  was delivered with bravura, if occasionally uneven confidence. 

Age (written in 1989 for Eikanger Musikklag) has not blunted the sharp edged technique that flows through the relentless underpinning of an opening movement built like a mini-concerto spotlight, or the lyricism and nobility of the central section which was captured by confident solo leads.  

The finale, jubilant and energetic gained in recapitulated momentum to round off a programme of ambition and understanding.

Iwan Fox