We joined with Skegness Silver Band on Sunday 22 September 2013 to form Lincolnshire Brass for the third year running at the Last Night of the Proms at the Embassy Skegness. Masterminded by Steve Walker, musical director, the evening was the best yet. Almost all seats were taken, and a rapturous audience intent on enjoying themselves made it an evening to remember.
Guest artistes were versatile saxophonist Snake Davis and the Digby Military Wives Choir. Among other numbers Snake played a haunting arrangement of ‘Maria’, from West Side Story, accompanied by the band, and the Military Wives sang popular numbers a capella, as well as with the band and with their own magic orchestra hidden in an iPad.
MC Rob Underwood from Radio Lincs introduced band soloists Andrew Taylor (cornet) and Richard Tagg (bass trombone). Andrew played ‘Meditation from Thais’ and had also taken the main part in ‘Scheherezade’, a demanding piece for the whole band – a piece we have been practising for a year to debut at the Embassy on Sunday.
Richard’s party piece is ‘Bare Necessities’ from the ‘Jungle Book’. On Sunday he donned a bear outfit to add verisimilitude to his rendition.
It was a sad occasion for both Skegness and Alford bands as we are losing some of our best players to university. Rebecca Murray, Josh Wilkinson and James Barnett came up from Alford Junior Band. Rebecca plays cornet and is one of three musical sisters – Kate also came up from Junior band and Megan is currently in Junior Band.
James started playing at eleven and has been a member of the Alford GS orchestra and jazz band. He is off to the University of Buckingham to study Economics.
Josh started in Junior Band at eight and is also a very talented pianist. Not only is he the youngest lead cornet player in Alford band, but he also regularly conducts the Junior Band, and has arranged music for us. He has an interest in composition too. Josh is off to York to study Music.
We also said farewell to Skegness percussionist Lewis Knight, who is going to the Royal Northern College of Music. Lewis is exceptionally talented and has been playing with Paula Baldwin’s Big Band for a couple of years now.
Best of luck guys and hope to see you all at Christmas.
Jenny Ward