West Lothian Schools Brass Band
The Besson Scottish Solo & Ensemble Championships were held at Howden Park Centre on the weekend of Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th February. To support this event, a joint gala concert was arranged featuring the West Lothian Schools Brass Band and the Scottish Co-Op Band, featuring the talents of guest euphonium soloist, Steven Mead.
The first half of the concert featured WLSBB under guest conductor Alan Duguid. They got of to a fine start with ‘The West Lothian’, followed by ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’ and ‘Skirl’. Vicky Blair (lead cornet) then gave an excellent solo performance on ‘Con Te Partiro’. We were then treated to ‘Trumpet’s Wild’ featuring the cornets of Susannah Downs, Haley Edmond & Holly Boddice. The band were then joined by Steven Mead who demonstrated his talents firstly with ‘Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair’, followed by a duet with the band’s lead euphonium ,Isla Cameron, ‘Deep Inside the Sacred Temple’. As a finale to the first half of the concert, the band gave us ‘Queen Rules!’ - a well loved favourite of WLSBB aficionados.
The second half of the concert saw the current Scottish Champions, The Scottish Co-op Band conducted by Raymond Tennant take to the stage. They performed a varied programme entitled “Around the World in 80 minutes“, which was slightly curtailed due to the earlier contest over running! This included ‘Windows of the World’ by Peter Graham, ‘Spring’ by Grieg and ‘Arctic Funk’ by Torstein Aagaard-nilsen, amongst others. They were also joined by Steven Mead for ‘The Better World’ by Norman Bearcroft and ‘Zigeunerweisen’(Gypsy Airs) by Sarasate . An excellent evening’s entertainment.
Gala Concert - Howden Park Centre, Livingston, 5th February 2005.
