LOROS Concert
Jan. 14, 2012
There was a packed audience at Burleigh Community College, Loughborough for Hathern Band’s Charity concert in aid of LOROS, the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice. This is the Band’s 11th concert in support of LOROS and as in previous years, the concert has benefited from support by Barclays Bank under their ‘£ for £ Scheme’.
The Band was certainly in sparkling form for their first concert of 2012 and together with Musical Director David Newman, treated the audience to a lively programme in variety of musical styles, which emphatically demonstrated that brass bands don’t just play marches!
There was a lovely selection from the musical My Fair Lady, a big band number, Swing When You’re Winning and we were treated to the Sounds of Simon & Garfunkel, which had been arranged by Neville Buxton, the Band’s solo euphonium player. Unusually, Neville’s arrangement included a part for keyboard and this was expertly played by the multi-talented Susan Robinson, a member of Hathern’s cornet section.
The concert included a number of solos; Jack Hardy gave a very soulful and moving performance on cornet of the Michael Bublé hit Cry Me A River and the flugel horn solo of the song Alfie was beautifully played by Lesley Bentley. The Band’s principal cornet player Mike Wood swapped his cornet for the post horn and stunned the audience with his brilliant rendition of the Post Horn Gallop and all without the aid of any sheet music! It was a busy evening for Mike as he and the rest of the cornet players, plus the horn section set the toes tapping with the Jackie Wilson number Reet Petite and Mike also featured in Someone To Watch Over Me, a great jazz classic brought to prominence in recent times by the late Amy Winehouse.
The solo, Zirkus Renz performed by percussionist Joe Southgate proved that he is certainly a virtuoso xylophone player but his talents also extend to excellent arrangements. The Band played Joe’s arrangement of the Dr Who theme, which was very evocative and one almost expected the Tardis to make an appearance. To conclude a great evening’s entertainment for a great cause the Band played the powerful hymn How Great Thou Art, which perhaps should be sub-titled “as seen on TV” following the Band’s performance of the hymn on The One Show a few months ago. Indeed, it was a superb evening of uplifting music and David Newman’s amusing anecdotes and introductions to the numbers certainly added to the entertainment.
The concert was a huge success and raised £2,105.00 for LOROS, including a donation of £750.00 from Barclays Bank under their match funding scheme. The cheque was accepted by Adrian Walker of LOROS who thanked everyone for achieving such a splendid amount and said that both he and his colleague Peter Barnes had thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s entertainment. Mr Walker 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 to provide free care to terminally ill patients and also give support to their families.
On behalf of Hathern Band, David Newman thanked Barclays for their on-going support of this concert, which has now raised over £23,500.00 for LOROS since the first one 11 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 £2,000.00 for the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice.
Press release