On the afternoon of Saturday 13th January Aylesbury Band travelled again to St Mary’s Church, Eaton Bray for a New Year Concert. By the time the concert was due to start a gratifyingly large audience nearly filled the church, indeed the organiser had to put out extra seats for latecomers.
Conductor Robert Wicks had chosen Flourish for Wind Band to announce that the concert had begun, followed by the lively overture Light Cavalry by Franz von Suppé. Two items from films followed, Beauty and the Beast from the Disney cartoon version, and Hallelujah from Shrek by Leonard Cohen. Then the band played 5 movements from A Silent Movie Suite, an original work for band by Martin Ellerby which evokes the early days of the cinema. This was accompanied by suitable “subtitles” held up by a volunteer to announce the titles of each movement. The first half ended with a selection from the musical Les Misérables.
After the interval, the second half opened with Celtic Carol arranged by Robert W. Smith, and a selection of music from recent episodes of Dr Who, complete with the well known title theme. The slightly nostalgic Waltz no. 2 from a “Jazz” suite by Shostakovich was followed by the manic LOL (Laugh Out Loud) by Robert Buckley. To slow the pace, but staying with TV themes, Band of Brothers came next, followed by music from Mary Poppins.
This was a New Year concert, however, so we couldn’t finish without playing The Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II, arranged by Rob Wiffin. The enthusiastic applause merited an encore, which was inevitably the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss I.
How nice it is to play to such an appreciative audience. It’s even nicer to know we’ve been invited back to play again next year.