On Saturday 2nd March, the band performed alongside the highly-regarded Finchley Chamber Choir to present an evening of “English Music for Choir and Brass”. Despite being based only 7 miles apart, the two ensembles had never previously performed together which meant this was a very exciting collaboration.
The choir, led by conductor David Lardi, joined with a brass and percussion ensemble made up of players from Regent Brass to present three works by English composers – “Vexilla Regis” by John Ireland, “Gloria” by John Rutter and “Magnificat” by Paul Patterson, who was in the audience for the performance. Each of these pieces were very well received by the audience, and also demonstrated the versatility of David Quinlan, Vickie Curran, Sarah Findon and Francis Riebrand in switching to trumpet for the performance!
The band also performed three works by English composers from very different backgrounds over the course of the evening – the march “The President” by William German, “A Moorside Suite” by Gustav Holst and “Harmony Music” by Philip Sparke. These original works for band represented a broad spectrum of different styles of writing for the medium and drew positive comments from the audience.
The band would like to extend their thanks to Finchley Chamber Choir and David Lardi for giving us the opportunity to perform with them and we hope to collaborate together in the future.
