Cory and Only Men Aloud reunite

'Brass and Voices @ the Movies' to headline Brass in Concert Festival

The organisers of this year’s Brass in Concert Festival, to be staged at Sage Gateshead on the weekend of 18-19 November, have announced that defending champion Cory will present this year’s Gala Concert together with award-winning choir Only Men Aloud. The concert represents a reprise of a successful collaboration enjoyed a decade ago when Cory and Only Men Aloud joined forces for the Warner Classics album, This Land of Ours.

The brainchild of Sir Karl Jenkins, this collaboration gave new vitality to the brass band and male choir tradition through a bespoke repertoire, and unique level of exposure. Surrounding a spectacular CD launch at the Millennium Stadium, Cory and Only Men Aloud (also known as Cantorion back then) performed together on BBC, S4C and ITV television, and were regularly broadcast on Classic FM with This Land of Ours entering the ‘top 10’ of the Classical Charts. During the same period Cory won the British Open Championship, ending the year as No.1 Ranked Band in the World (2007), and Only Men Aloud went on to win the BBC’s Last Choir Standing competition (2008).

On this year’s concert, Brass in Concert Chair John Woods told BBW: “For some years we have been planning to bring a very different flavour to the Saturday gala event at Brass in Concert and we are delighted that this ‘Welsh extravaganza’ has come together with two groups right at the pinnacle of musical achievement in the ‘Land of Song’. We are certain that the Sage Gateshead audience will be in for an absolutely spectacular and unforgettable movie themed prelude to the following day’s Brass in Concert Championships.”

Following This Land of Ours and Last Choir Standing success, Only Men Aloud have since performed in leading venues throughout the world and have recorded five albums that have featured highly in the Classical Charts, including Band of Brothers which spent three weeks at number one and was voted Album of the Year at the 2010 Classical Brit Awards.

Philip Harper, Cory’s current Musical Director, commented: “We are very excited at the prospect of working with Only Men Aloud and adding another strand to Cory’s unique brand of brass band entertainment. We at Cory are not only passionate about bringing the genre of brass bands into the 21st century, but also committed, in equal measure with Only Men Aloud, to reinvigorating the genre of brass and voices which has so much untapped potential in today's musical world. As the world’s leading brass entertainment festival, Brass in Concert has been instrumental in recent years in bringing a new level of professionalism to the presentation of brass bands and we are delighted to be at the forefront as the event moves in a new direction.”

John Woods concluded: “The 2017 Brass in Concert Festival is already shaping up to be the best ever and we expect to have some very exciting announcements about our international participants in the weeks ahead.”

Tickets for the Brass in Concert Championship on Sunday 19 November (priced £30.00, £22.00 and £12.00) and World of Brass in Concert (Saturday 18 November - £27.00, £18.00 and £10.00) are available at www.sagegateshead.com or by telephone on 0191 443 4661.

Cory and Only Men Aloud perform Sir Karl Jenkins' Cantilena

Sir Karl Jenkins on This Land of Ours (courtesy of Warner Classics' YouTube, uploaded 9 Feb 2009) - "The idea came to me earlier in the year to record an album that reflected two important facets of traditional Welsh popular culture, the male voice choir and the brass band, brought together for the first time on a major record release.

"Male voice choirs and brass bands have been synonymous with our country since the industrial revolution and although this is true of many mining communities, particularly in the north of England, the male choir has a particular resonance in Wales. It was clear that I had to employ the best possible practitioners in these disciplines to make this project memorable and the choice of both band and choir was easy. It was crucial to have a choir that, while retaining the raw emotion of the traditional Welsh male choir, also possessed superb musicianship and reading ability, in the musical sense, which enabled me to explore more adventurous harmonies and sounds than is perhaps the norm within this genre, with the choral harmonies sometimes consisting of as many as eight separate parts when often two, or even one, is the norm.

"I've known Tim Rhys Evans [and his two choirs, the mixed choir Serendipity and Only Men Aloud, his male voice choir] for a few years. Tim is a brilliant choral director and trainer and indeed undertook that role on my Requiem recording. His male choir has now metamorphosed into Cantorion. Comprising young, vibrant voices with the aforementioned skills although only sixteen in number, they produce an enormous sound, made even bigger by a particular recording technique of mine that shall remain secret!

"I can say no more about the Cory band than that they are simply the best in the world, an extravagant claim maybe, but endorsed by the fact that soon after this recording was made in September 2007, they went on to win, under their musical director Dr. Robert Childs, the British Open Championship, ahead of such luminaries as the Black Dyke Mills & Grimethorpe Colliery bands. At this point in time, they are officially ranked No 1 in the world! On a personal level I first met the band through David Childs [Robert's son] the great euphonium virtuoso [former winner of the BBC Young Musician Brass Finals] who plays all the euphonium solos here, even performing a duet with himself on Flower Duet.

"Other pieces include classical favourites, Welsh folk songs and hymns and some well known pieces of mine while others, although not intrinsically Welsh, are favourites in the Principality. Two of the pieces have new text, in Welsh, by the outstanding Welsh poet Grahame Davies. These are reworkings of the Largo from Dvoraks New World Symphony as Cysgu Di [Go To Sleep] and of my Adiemus Cantilena: Ysbrid Y Mynyddoedd [Spirit of the Mountains] that was the soundtrack to the C&G Diver commercial."

Cory and Only Men Aloud perform Sir Karl Jenkins' Benedictus

Book your tickets to hear Cory and Only Men Aloud in a movie themed concert
at the Sage on Saturday 18 November by visiting: www.sagegateshead.com 
or by telephoning +44 (0)191 443 4661