Band Brings Yorkshire Sparkle

The Dereham Band celebrated their 75^th anniversary in style last Saturday by inviting the world famous Brighouse and Rastrick Band to play a concert at Northgate High School.

The brass band from Yorkshire, famous for its chart topping “Floral Dance” gave a sparkling performance to a delighted sell-out audience, under the expert direction of jovial Richard Evans.

The programme, especially put together for the Dereham Band, contained something for everyone, as it flew around the world from competition winning piece “West Ridings”, to Armenia, for a very hot “Ritual Fire Dance”.

Consummate solo performances were very much a feature of the evening. Cornetist Alan Morrison provided a delightfully musical performance of his own arrangement “Georgia on my mind”. Melvyn Bathgate’s tenor horn rendition of the traditional “Afton Water” moved the audience with its simple beauty. A floridly complicated but humorous rendition of “Czardas” was ably provided by tuba soloist David Hebb. An equally fiery “Slavische Fantasy” showing off the talents of Michael Howley on euphonium, contrasted with the silky tones of flugel soloist David Moore, who played an adaptation of “Concierto de Aranjuez”.

A “big Band” set proved very popular with the audience, and was obviously enjoyed by the band too.

Dereham Band secretary Karen Nichols was presented with a limited edition commemorative medal by Richard Evans on behalf of the Brighouse and Rastrick Band, as this year is also the famous bands 125^th anniversary.

The concert closed with “Overture 1812”, which was only marginally topped by a surprise encore of “The Floral Dance”. This rounded off a splendid evening of family entertainment which had the audience buzzing from the very first note.

Philip Chambers, Dereham Band.