On Saturday 30th April, Ascot Brass returned to St Andrew’s Church in Sonning, where they joined the Bulmershe School Choirs, the Church Junior Choir and soloist Celeste Hexter in presenting an evening of music.
The newly renovated St Andrew’s Church made a beautiful setting for the evening. Ascot Brass took center stage, with the choirs sat behind and to the sides in the chancel. As the final members of the audience took their seats, the band took a deep breath and began the festival march Celebration, rousing the audience and instilling a sense of excitement, before calming things down with the atmospheric Cavatina from The Deer Hunter.
After introductions by Ascot Brass’ Musical Director David Rudd, who also took the baton as Master of Ceremonies for the evening, the Bulmershe School Choir sang a clever mashup of Counting Stars and Maps, accompanied by students on piano and guitar.
Throughout the evening, the band played a number of popular tunes from the banding world, including solos from principal cornet Mark Dallas, principal trombone David Daws, and solo tenor horn Stacey Hall. Dallas serenaded the audience with the beautiful ballad My Love is like a Red, Red Rose, before Daws exhibited his world-class musicianship through increasingly technically difficult variations on the folk melody Blue Bells of Scotland. Hall, in the second half of the evening, stunned the audience with her performance of The Lark in the Clear Air, a band favourite.
Between the band’s brassy tunes and the choir’s spirited performances of modern popular songs, including their own arrangement of Feeling Good, the audience enjoyed solos from the church’s talented soprano, Celeste Hexter. For her first piece, Hexter sang A Nightengale Sang in Berkley Square, which received overwhelming applause from the audience. Later in the evening, she performed Sea Fever, her A-Level recital piece, which draws inspiration from the poem by John Masefield.
To bring the evening to an end, Ascot Brass played Fire in the Blood by Paul Lovatt-Cooper. Inspired by music that had influenced the composer throughout his Salvation Army upbringing, the piece invited the audience to reflect on the setting in which they found themselves, while embracing the joy and energy conveyed through the music.
