A PostCard From The North East 28th March

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Now over to Rob Collinson for a great Brass band show.

Hello and welcome to this postcard from the North East with me Rob Collinson.

Stay with me for the next hour or so as I bring you familiar and not-so-familiar music from the world of brass bands.

Plenty to get through today including my guest band, so let's get started with this.

That was the fairy FP music band, as they were known at the time, with Arthur Bliss' Kennel with Sweet.

So Arthur Bliss was born in Barnes, London in the late 19th century.

His musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army.

In the postwar years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composers,

but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music.

In the 1920s and 30s he composed extensively not only for concert hall but also for films and ballet.

With the rise of Gustav Holst and William Walton, his music was sometimes deemed a little orthodox.

Kennelworth is his famous three movement suite for brass band composed in 1936 for the contest at the Crystal Palace.

Inspired by a visit to Kennelworth Castle and Queen Elizabeth I's 1575 visit,

the work is known for its pageantry featuring a triumphal march, a melancholic serenade and a final jubilant march.

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It's been a long time coming, but today I have a guest band.

It's the Loftouse 2000 band based in South Leeds, West Yorkshire.

I'll tell you more about that after we hear from them.

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The Loftouse 2000 band getting us off to a great start with a John Barry score from the 1990 film Dancers with Wolf

dancers with wolves. It's an American epic revisionist western film directed and

produced by Kevin Costner in his featured directorial debut. It's dad Costner with

an ensemble cast including Merrick McDonald, Graham Green and Rodney Grant. The film

score was provided by Yorkshire Bond, John Barry. This arrangement featured

Loftouse's principal con at Katie Wilson, more from her a little later. So what

about the band and what about that name? Well Loftouse 2000 brass band was formed in

1999 with just a handful of musicians and a few instruments. Since then it has

grown into a flourishing organisation helped by the brass tradition of

supplying instruments and tuition to players for a modest subscription. The band

is thoroughly involved in activities at all levels in and around West Yorkshire,

concerts, fates, garden parties, bandstowns, evening openings, church services and

Christmas caroling. The band is never still and enjoys being part of the local

communities. Success for Loftouse 2000 has come not only through hard work and

dedication but by making brass banding fun and a rewarding experience that

gives musicians of all ages a sense of community. On with the music the band

elected to showcase their soloists during our session last November so here is

the first soloist of today. It's Eva Hallis on Tenerhorn. Her

choice of music is pretty much a classic and required repertoire for all

horn players. It's got Richard's arrangement of Over the Rainbow. It's a

ballad by Harold Allen with lyrics by Yip Harberg and was written for the

1939 film The Wizard of Oz. In the film it was sung by the actress Judy

Garland in her starring role as Dorothy. I have read that the song was one that

may have been cut from the film. Luckily it was saved. He is Eva.

Eva Hallis with Over the Rainbow. I've had an association with the band since

their early days and in fact I produced their first CD. Trailblares are good

15 or so years ago. I've known this next soloist longer than either of us

care to remember. Mark Moore House has been the Loftouse 2000 soprano

connetist for a number of years. He featured on that first CD playing

Send in the Clowns. For this recording he elected to play No Time to Die and as

I go to press with this show I hear he was a water player of the year 2025

within the band's honor system. Well done mate. This is the theme from the

Bond film No Time to Die. Let's hear him now.

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My guest band The Loftouse 2000 band is directed by Lee Whitworth. Lee's background is as a

military musician with his first conducting position being B. Dale Brass band. He has

quite a conducting pedigree, having conducted Baldwin Corrie, North-Alton Silver,

the Ripon City band, the Royal Air Force volunteer band in Cyprus, West Yorkshire

Fire and Rescue Service band and YEP 10 piece. He has been directing Loftouse

2000 band since 2021. Let's hear him direct to the next item which features

Katie Wilson. We met her earlier. It's a connet feature written by Horge Carmichael

with lyrics by Stuart Gawrall in 1930. This song has been well represented by numerous

cover versions, notably Red Charles. There is some debate as to the origin of the Georgia

in the title. Many assert that the name refers to the state of Georgia in the United States.

Others claim that the Georgia is actually Carmichael's sister. Who knows? It's a good

tune and in this arrangement of Georgia on my mind by Adam Morrison will hear Katie

sing.

A Flughalhorn solo next. There was a family connection with Eva on horn and Mark on soprano

connet. Well, there's another family connection with this next piece and the one that follows

it. The Flughalhorn work is from the show Jesus Christ Superstar. Andrew Lloyd Webber

hasn't done too badly for himself, has he? He's an English composer in Impressario of

Musical Theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade, both in the

West End and on Broadway. He's composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations,

two film scores and a Latin Requiem Mass, so he's quite a busy chap. After his success

of the musical Joseph and his technical and dream court of 1968, he collaborated with

his lyricist Tim Rice to produce Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970. I'm going out on a

limb here, but I suspect that the general public may be most familiar with this next item

from the show. This is, I don't know how to love him as a Flughalhorn solo showcasing

Thomas Land.

.

Thomas Land with I don't know how to love him. And now to the family connection. His mother

is Kath Land. Kath is a percussionist with the Loftouse 2000 band. We don't often have

percussion represented front and centre, but I'm putting that right with this item.

George Botsford was an American composer who grew up in Iowa in the late 1900s. He

was, what is known as a Tin Panali composer, with his most popular song being Black and

White Rag. Pianist Winifred Atwell made the composition very popular, and the BBC used

her version as the theme to their pot black snooker programme. This is Kath Land on

Xylophone in a pole of a Cooper arrangement of Black and White Rag.

.

Black and White Rag played by Kath Land. On to the last item from the Loftouse 2000 band.

Where would we be without Alan Furny these days? It's one of his arrangements, will he

next? It's the theme from a film called Local Hero with the title Going Home. The film

was released in 1983 and is a British comedy drama following the story of a multinational

oil company wishing to purchase a village in the Scottish Islands to make wear for its

refinery. The theme is by Mount Noffler. This is Going Home.

.

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So, onto the last item of today. It's a work by Arthur Butterworth, we've met him before.

This is his work, Olden, Land of Fire and Ice of 1986.

The work came to be written as the outcome of a conversation with Peter Parks, at that time the musical director of Black Dyke Mills Band.

He asked for a new work for the band. The band gave the first performance in August 1986

at the International trumpet guild meeting in London.

After that, possibly due to its difficulty, the piece was largely neglected until 2008 at the Norwegian brass band championships.

This is the winning performance from that contest by the Icanga Biosvik band under the direction of Nicholas Childs.

This is a work by Arthur Butterworth.

A PostCard From The North East 28th March

About this Episode

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