LOROS Concert
Jan. 17, 2015
H A T H E R N B A N D
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Hathern Band’s first concert in 2015 (17 January) was a Charity event in aid of LOROS, the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice, and the capacity audience in the village Parish Church thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s entertainment. The Charity has particular significance to Hathern Band as three members of the organisation have been cared for by LOROS, most recently Rachael Baum who played tenor horn and whose husband Simon and son Jake play in the Band.
The Band were certainly on top form and together with Musical Director David Newman, treated the audience to a lively programme in a variety of musical styles, which illustrated extremely well the huge diversity of music played by brass bands. David’s amusing anecdotes and introductions to the numbers also added to the entertainment.
The evening got off to a toe tapping start with the march Arnhem and we were then brought to the present day with the wonderful theme by Adele to the Bond movie Skyfall. Next, ‘for something totally different’ was a battle of the euphoniums as Graham Rix and Geoff Newman fought to out do each other in Anything You Can Play (I Can Play Better), a novel and amusing take on the number from Annie Get Your Gun, expertly played by both and should be declared a draw!
There were solos from two of the Band’s talented youngsters. Local village lad Dru Sparks (18) gave a moving rendition of a Sicilian folk tune, Vitae Lux (Light of Life) on flugel horn and all without the aid of music. Percussionist Jake Baum (16) then upped the tempo with Taps in Tempo played at breakneck speed on xylophone and at times he was using four, rather than the usual two sticks. Jake’s father Simon also featured with the other members of the trombone section, Andrea Allen and Amber Lewis as they gave a snappy interpretation of Frolic for Trombones. Music from movies also featured with I Will Follow Him (Sister Act) and Eye of the Tiger (Rocky) and the concert concluded with Bach’s powerful Toccata in D Minor, which exploited the Church’s excellent acoustics to good effect.
The concert was a huge success and raised £2,005.10 for the Leicestershire Hospice, 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 he had thoroughly enjoyed the concert, and was very impressed with the standard of musicianship.
On behalf of Hathern Band, David Newman thanked Barclays for their on-going support of this concert, which has now raised over £30,000 for LOROS since the first one 15 years ago. He also thanked everyone involved with the concert, particularly Band Secretary, Lesley Bentley who organised the event, Hathern Church Members, plus of course the audience, as without such support it would not have been possible to raise over £2,000.00 for the Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice.
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Louise Haworth – Publicity officer