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A Scottish gathering |
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On Friday, 27th February, 2009 the Scottish Co-op Band joined forces with Broxburn and Livingston Band to give a concert in the Strathbrock Community Centre in Broxburn. Playing to a capacity audience (extra chairs had to be brought in to the hall to cater for the numbers attending) both bands provided a widely varied and entertaining programme for which the audience showed generous appreciation.
The Broxburn and Livingston band, under the direction of Charlie Farren, kicked off the evening’s proceedings with Edward Gregson’s “Prelude For An Occasion” and then went on to give the audience their money’s - worth with a number of entertaining items among which were “Alladale” from “Hymn Of The Highlands” by Philip Sparke (which featured soloists Cheryl Saunders, Elaine Greenan and Sara Buchan), Eric Crees’ arrangement of “Scarborough Fair”, Peter Graham’s “Summon The Dragon” and Stephen Bradnum’s arrangement of Bacak’s “Irish Blessing”. The band ended their part of programme as it began, with the music of Edward Gregson. “Laudate Dominum” provided a most fitting conclusion to the band’s contribution.
After the interval, the Scottish Co-op band, under the leadership of Terry Johns, took the floor and started their programme with an arrangement of “An American In Paris” by Howard Snell . Thereafter, two soloists were featured. Caroline Munro performed the flugel horn solo “The Children of Sanchez”, an arrangement by Reid Gilje of Chuck Mangione’s film music and trombonist Gregor Stewart played Bill Geldard’s arrangement of “Londonderry Air”. Both items were greatly appreciated by the audience. Following a performance of “Hard Hats And Cornets”, (a piece written by conductor Terry Johns for the Maltby Miners’ Welfare Band), the band played a number of other items including “The Gael”, “In Perfect Peace”, “Salute To Youth” and “’Mid All The Traffic” before concluding with the Howard Snell arrangement of the march from “The Pines Of Rome” by Respighi. Before leaving the stage however, the band provided a scintillating encore when it played Sousa’s march “The Stars and Stripes Forever” much to the delight of the audience.
Throughout the evening the informative comments of conductors Charlie Farren and Terry Johns gave the audience an insight into the music which was played and greatly added to the enjoyment of a good evening’s entertainment. |