Loughborough Concert Band

The medieval church on Anstey Lane Thurcaston was a beautiful setting for our The Band Sounds Out concert this autumn. We didn’t need to raise the roof: the sound rose up among the pillars above the flagged stone floor.

That the programme was carefully chosen was shown practically before we had played a note:  Dave Coble had clearly been considering the evening and altered the order to get it right.

We started with the rousing Colonel Bogey (Alford) the went into Music for a Darkened Theatre (Elfman, arr Brown). Then our first solo spot of the evening as Thomas Chan on Alto Trombone played Over the Rainbow (Arlen, arr Barker). We played the beautiful Schindler’s List with features from Alto Sax (Zoe Felton) Oboe (Paula Gardner) and Flute (Yvonne Renouf). After the break we started with Royal Review and went straight to our other solo spot, Romance from The Gadfly by Dmitri Shostakovich played by Zoe Felton on Alto Saxophone.

The solo spots taken were played beautifully but I want to write a minute about Unsung Heros. Of these there are far too many to count and it may be due to the way we were positioned that I really appreciated the beautiful trumpet playing of our first trumpet, Sue Boyles. In one section of Swing Low (Rouse) her trumpet sang to the vaulted ceiling and her part in Edelweiss (Hammerstein) just hit the spot.

Thanks as ever are due to our talented deps Ian Reeve on Baritone Sax and Frances Tarte on Clarinet, and, technically, Steve Boyles on Tuba, though we are lucky enough to see a lot of him!