Children’s Band in Concert
The National Youth Children’s Band is in full flight in Taunton for its annual residential course and looking forward to its summer concert celebrating music from around the world.
The guest conductor Russell Gray hails from Scotland and has chosen a programme with an international flavour. The programme begins with Russian music from the pen of Rimsky Korsakov in an arrangement of ‘Cortege from Mlada’, ‘Starburst’ by Dan Price is intergalactic in style and is used in this context to celebrate the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain’s 70th Anniversary.
The Children’s Band continues the theme set by the National Youth Band of Great Britain in Easter of celebrating females in music. Karianne Flåtene Nilssen is guest soloist with the Children’s Band. Karianne is a trombonist from Stavanger in Norway and is a Yamaha Artist. She teaches at Stavanger School of Culture and gained her Master of Music Degree from The Institute of Music and Dance at University Stavanger. Karianne is the newly appointed principal trombone with Stavanger Band Norway.
Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia and died in 1961. The band will perform his quirky ‘Shepherds Hey’. From Australia our musical journey takes us back to Norway to play music by Frederick Schjelderup. Frederick lives in Bergen and is no stranger to the Children’s Band having already composed music especially for them and premiered in the summer course 2021. Russell Gray’s programme this summer includes two works by Frederick; ‘Concordi’ is the beautiful slow expressive second movement of ‘Terra Incognita’. ‘Felicitous’ another composition by Frederick Schjelderup was commissioned by the Yamaha Corporation as an opening number for their brass band clinic series. Compared to Britain Norway has a relatively young brass band movement beginning circa 1940. Peter Graham celebrates three luminaries who have helped pioneer the Norwegian Band Movement over the years. His piece ‘Heroes of the North’ pays tribute to Tom Brevik, Frode Rydland and Viggo Biorge. The band will also feature music from Africa via Alan Fernie’s ‘African Funk’, America with Jan Magna Forde’s super arrangement of ‘Mardi Gras in New Orleans and dances from Cuba and Brazil’.
Finally, the band has commissioned female composer Lucy Pankhurst to compose a piece about a city much nearer to home, Birmingham. The Children’s Band will première this new work in this concert and also at Birmingham’s prestigious Symphony Hall in September. The end of course concert takes place on Friday 29th July at 2pm in the spectacular venue of Wells Cathedral. Tickets are available at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-national-youth-brass-band-of-great-britain-childrens-band-in-concert-tickets-348788765587?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
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