NYBBGB 70th Celebration Concert
Following the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain’s Children’s Band concert on 29th July, the Youth Band will perform its 70th Anniversary Celebration Concert on Saturday 6th August at the Royal College of Music. Leading the band during this celebratory concert will be Guest Conductor, Martyn Brabbins. Martyn is an inspirational force in British music, with an opera career that has spanned the world from the Kirov to La Scala and he is currently Music Director of the English National Opera. He regularly guests with top international orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, DSO Berlin, as well as the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and now the NYBBGB!
The 70th Anniversary Celebration Concert has an extra special element as, for the first time, a vocal soloist will be performing alongside the band. British soprano Nardus Williams has been hailed as ‘one to listen out for’ by The Guardian and was recently nominated for the Times Breakthrough Award at The South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2022. She is a current English National Opera Harewood Artist and, in addition to performing with the Youth band, her upcoming highlights of the 2022/23 season include a return to the Glyndebourne tour as Countess in ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, performing a programme of Handel with the Dunedin Consort and Tippett’s ‘A Child of Our Time’ with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
Martyn’s programme is strong and eclectic with his theme of ‘Nature, Places, and Celebration’ giving the musical programme both cohesion and variety. Both halves of the concert commence with two quirky compositions by Brabbins titled ‘Here and There’ and ‘There and Back’, falling nicely into the ‘place’ part of his theme. Other places visited on this musical journey are Tintagel in Cornwall, a work written by the founder of the NYBBGB Denis Wright. ‘Tintagel’ is in three movements and highlights the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. London also features, but hidden behind John Ireland’s brass band title ‘Comedy Overture’. Martyn has conducted this work many times in its orchestral form which the composer re-named ‘A London Overture’. Cornwall is revisited with Malcolm Arnold’s much loved ‘Padstow Lifeboat’, as popular today as it was when written in the 1960s.
Peter Graham was commissioned to write a work to commemorate the National Youth Band’s 70th Anniversary and asked to celebrate the history of the band, its many luminaries, and significant events over the years. He has titled this new work ‘Hyper-Link’, and as the word suggests the many facets of the NYBBGB’s history are connected by music. This is a very exciting work and will receive its World Première in this concert.
Nardus Williams’ musical contribution in the concert will transport the audience to France as she sings a selection of Cantelouble’s beautiful ‘Songs from the Auvergne’.
The Nature element to the programme is found through John Pickard’s ‘Men of Stone’. This is part of a larger work for brass band called ‘Gaia Symphony’. Gaia after the Greek Goddess of Earth, mother of all life. ‘Gaia Symphony’ is in four movements representing the four natural elements: fire, water, air and earth. ‘Men of Stone’ refers to the fourth element, earth. Finally, there is an element of tradition in the programme with Derek Bourgeois’ quirky ‘Serenade’, originally composed by Derek for his own wedding and Eric Ball’s ‘Resurgam’, one of the most cherished works in the brass band repertory.
Tickets for the concert are available via: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/70th-anniversary-celebration-concert-tickets-333693294627
.gif)
