Bloomin great Flowers Band

Newbury Spring Festival: Flowers Band

at the Corn Exchange

on Sunday, May 19

Review by FIONA BENNETT

BOTH my husband John and I are lovers of brass band music. We love to listen to it, to play it and, in John’s case, to conduct it. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the sonic mastery of Flowers Band.

The band had already treated lucky shoppers at the Kennet Centre, earlier in the day, to some fun music and so impressed were they, quite a few bought tickets for their concert at the Corn Exchange.

Paul Holland has been the Flowers Band musical director for many years. Not only are they a winning combination, on this occasion, we, the audience, simply couldn’t believe our ears and eyes, such was the virtuosic standard of each and every member of this amazing ensemble, conducted with great musicality and aplomb by Paul.

After an exciting opening, Home of Legends by Paul Lovatt-Cooper, Paul introduced a suite of five individual pieces, composed by Dan Price, Lucy Pankhurst and Kelly-Marie Murphy, all based on Lewis Carroll’s Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

It’s always lovely to hear new brass band music and these three composers took us on a fabulously quirky and technically demanding journey, featuring Emily Evans on solo horn. Wow, just wow! We also loved the visual backdrop to the story. The whole production was impressive and entertaining, especially when the percussion section was augmented with the sound of smashed tea plates.

The second half featured three pieces of well-known classical music; the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie and Walton’s Crown Imperial. My piano teacher, Mary Rees, once told me that there are only so many notes the brain can process and there were times the incredibly fast tempi in both the Tchaikovsky and the Walton, eluded me. Knowing the music so well, I was yearning to slow them both down by just a few beats per minute but of course, the overall effect was stunning, brilliant and breathtaking.

The percussion section must each have covered at least a week’s step count as they beetled around at the back, each swapping from tuned instruments to rain stick, tambourine, tubular bells, drum kit and bongos and solo euphonium, Dan Thomas’ Carnival of Venice brought the house down too and it only remains for me to say that if you ever get the chance to hear this world class brass band, led by superstar cornet principal Luke Barker and conducted by Paul Holland, beg, steal or borrow a ticket.

It was quite simply one of the BEST NSF concerts I’ve ever attended in the 34 years I’ve lived in Newbury.