Hathern Band’s first concert in 2011 was a Charity event in aid of LOROS, the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice, and the capacity audience at Burleigh Community College, Loughborough thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s entertainment. This is the bands 10th concert in support of LOROS and as in previous years, the concert has also benefited from support by Barclays Bank under their ‘£ for £ Scheme’.
The Band and Musical Director, David Newman, treated the audience to a varied
programme with some great playing and opened proceedings with the march Freiweg, which had been arranged by the Band’s solo euphonium player, Neville Buxton.
Mike Wood, the Band’s principal solo cornet player had a busy evening because in addition to performing a duet of the Frank Sinatra number ‘Something Stupid’ with flugel horn player, Lesley Bentley, he and other members of the cornet section were featured in The Water is Wide, The Humming Chorus and a very moving rendition of Auld Lang Syne/Last Post.
Another member of the cornet section, Susan Robinson, demonstrated her other musical talents on keyboard when together with Lesley Bentley on flugel horn, they gave a splendid performance of the delightful number, Scarlet Ribbons.
The final solo of the evening was from trombonist Simon Baum who gave a very polished interpretation of In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning and all without the aid of any sheet music – most impressive!
In addition to enjoying the Band’s playing, the audience also obviously appreciated the introductions to each number provided by David Newman, whose relaxed and often amusing style certainly added to the evening’s entertainment.
Last year, members of Hathern Band joined the Festival Players, Loughborough in their very successful stage production of the hit film Brassed Off, which had starred the late Pete Postlethwaite. The beautiful number Londonderry Air featured in the production was performed by the Band, in memory of a great actor and as a reminder of the fun of taking part in the play. Music from the film Chicago set the toes tapping as the Band performed All That Jazz with great aplomb and the concert was brought to a rousing conclusion with more film music from The Last of the Mohicans.
The concert was a huge success and raised £1,860.66 for LOROS, including a donation of £750.00 from Barclays Bank under their match funding scheme. The cheque was accepted by Simon Proffitt, Chief Executive of LOROS who thanked everyone for achieving such a splendid amount and said that both he and his wife had thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s entertainment. Mr Proffitt went on to say that in addition to its 300 employees, there are 900 volunteers and each year the Hospice needs to raise £4 million to continue its work within the local community.
On behalf of Hathern Band, David Newman thanked Barclays for their on-going support of this concert, which has now raised over £21,000.00 for LOROS since the first one ten years ago. He also thanked everyone involved with the concert, particularly the audience, as without such support it would not have been possible to raise over £1,800.00 for the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice.