West Lothian Schools Brass Band
Spring Concert Series 2006
The West Lothian Spring Concert series 2006 saw the band take part in a concert on Sunday 26th March at St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston. Also participating in the event were the highly acclaimed West Lothian Schools Jazz Ensemble and the NYCoS West Lothian Training and Youth Choirs.
On display in the Atrium were some of the awards won by the Bands and Choirs taking part in the concert including the British National Youth Brass Band Championship and Scottish Youth Brass Brand Championship cups.
Also playing on a large screen T.V. Was a sample copy of the recent “Best Years of our Lives” DVD which features many West Lothian youth groups including the Brass Band. Copies will be available for purchase in the near future - watch this space for details.
So we were all set for the band’s contribution to the event, with a slightly unusual line-up due to some of the regular players being unavailable - the most notable change being Susannah Downs occupying the Principal Cornet seat, deputising for Vicky Blair, and some new faces in the back row, taking part in their first concert.
The band were scheduled to play five pieces of music according to the programme in a set entitled
‘Showtime for Friends’.
They began with “I’ll Be There For You”, the catchy theme tune from the hit TV series Friends, arranged for brass band by Andrew Duncan. It was a safer move to put this first in the programme on this occasion - at least it made sure they would complete the piece, unlike the “Best Years of Our Lives” concert in the Usher Hall, when a fire alarm caused this piece to be abandoned!
No fire alarms on this occasion, so it was on with the show and the band’s version of the Beatles “Ticket to Ride” arranged by Alan Fernie - an arrangement originally commissioned for the band.
Keeping the tempo up, we were then treated to “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, arranged by S. Roberts.
Slowing things down a little, the next item was “Benedictus” (from the Armed Man”, arranged by Karl Jenkins and A. Small.
And so to the finale, well, the last piece on the programme - the “Symphonic Suite from Mary Poppins” arranged by Andrew Duncan. At first glance this would appear to be an unusual choice for the band, but it was, as Nigel remarked, an excellent piece of music. However, Nigel did suggest that the band
would respond favourably to shouts of ‘more!, encore!’ or even a standing ovation, and that was what they got. This resulted in a total of four encores - a band record, including their excellent percussion soloist, Kenny Carlisle performing the “Flight of the Bumble Bee” - after a little bit of bribery from Nigel. (The money was returned before he was allowed to leave the stage!)
An excellent performance to conclude the band’s season. Now it’s a well deserved break for exams and holidays! Keep an eye out for details of the autumn concert schedule.
