Aireborough Rotary’s ‘Festival of Brass’ concert began strikingly with Club President Heather Read walking on to an empty stage to welcome and thank the expectant audience and to introduce compere and conductor Frank Renton.

What followed would be a mystery he confessed before moving away to allow Hepworth’s Principal Trombonist Yvonne Embury to take centre stage as

soloist on Lennon and McCartney’s ‘With a little help from my friends’. The stage then gradually filled as individuals and sections took up their places whilst playing, till the whole ensemble came together. They moved without a pause into a breakneck rendition of Fred Jewell’s ‘Galop, They’re Off’.

Back in his familiar position Frank congratulated Heather on becoming the Club’s first female President in 64 years with the comment ‘now that’s what I call progress!’

The programme he had drawn up with the band would not appeal to all brass band aficionados containing as it did rarely played and unfamiliar pieces but this was certainly no swansong as he pledged to return ‘as long as you still want me’.

The Hepworth, a Championship Section Band, followed their unusual opener on stage with a masterful performance of an eclectic programme ranging from the Beatles ‘Ticket to Ride’ through Elgar Howarth’s ‘Music from the Elizabethan Court’ to the concluding ‘Shine as the Light’ by Peter Graham with its groundbreaking aleatory conclusion.

As ever every player took pleasure in and applauded each other’s solos later describing Isobel Daws’ playing as ‘fabulous’ and praising their own Steve Ridler on his soulful interpretation of ‘When I Fall in Love’. Their presentation of ‘Three Haworth Impressions’ was decidedly atmospheric and evocative and Derek Bourgeois’ ‘Serenade’ provided a delightful encore.

As his guest soloist Frank had secured a superb choice in 18 year old Isobel Daws, ‘the clear winner’ of BBC Radio 2’s Young Brass Award 2017, currently studying for ‘A’ levels in Manchester. Isobel chose a fuller version of her Award winning ‘Rhapsody for Trombone and Band’ by Gordon Langford as her first piece, delivered as a mesmerising tour de force. Later in the programme Arthur Pryor’s ‘Thoughts of Love’ received the same sensitive and confident treatment from a gifted performer who will go far.

Frank Renton’s performance over the evening was a typical miscellany demonstrating his encyclopaedic brass band knowledge plus his unabridged thoughts on composers, arrangers and performers not sparing the Rolling Stones.

His humour came out in his introductions to the Witch of Westmorelands and his tall tale about Patrick Bronte for ‘Three Haworth Impressions’.

He wrote in the programme ‘it is my yearly trip into the area of my youth and every year gets more nostalgic’ (despite the cold).

Make sure Friday, October 26 2018 goes straight into your calendar.

by

Robert Mirfield

Secretary Rotary Club of Aireborough.