On Sunday 27th October, Regent Brass travelled down to Surrey for their annual “Brass Spectacular” concert with Mole Valley Silver Band. Held in the beautiful Dorking Halls, this event rounds off the popular “Arts Alive” festival and is a real highlight of the band’s calendar.
On this occasion, the concert featured several works from the pen of Guiseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, two composers who celebrate their bi-centenary in 2013. Mole Valley performed the Grand March from Verdi’s opera “Aida” while Regent rounded off their set with Wagner’s rousing “Procession to the Minster” from Lohengrin. Both bands then joined forces for a massed band performance of Verdi’s Hebrew Slaves’ Chorus from “Nabucco” and the Introduction to Act 3 of Wagner’s “Lohengrin”, amongst other pieces.
Regent’s set consisted of a wide range of repertoire, reprising Philip Sparke’s “Rhythm and Blues”, Eric Whitacre’s “Lux Aurumque” and Jelly Roll Morton’s “Black Bottom Stomp” from their prize-winning programme played at the SCABA Entertainment Contest earlier in the year.
The band also gave a robust performance of Wilfred Heaton’s “Contest Music”, the very well-written but demanding set work for the Scottish Open contest in November.
Sadly, the concert marked the end of principal cornet Barbara King’s time with the band. Having joined in 2012, Barbara has led the cornet section with panache, winning the “Best Cornet” prize at the London and Southern Counties Area Contest in March. As a fitting send-off, Barbara have a beautiful performance of Gordon Langford’s iconic cornet solo “My Love is Like a Red, Rose”, which gained rapturous applause from the audience.
The band would like to thank Mole Valley Silver Band for inviting us once again to perform at this event and also the guest players who performed with us.
