Spring 2005

9th April - Spring Concert
30th April - Flower Parade Concert
15th May - Ayscoughfee Gardens
27th May - Horbling Church

Spring Programme below

9th April - Spring Concert All Saints Church Holbeach

Holbeach Town Band had a successful Spring Concert at All Saints Church Holbeach on Saturday 9^th April.

After a nervous opening with the march ‘The Middy’ the band soon got into its stride with the selection of classical music ‘Classical Gold’ played to a strong drum rhythm.  This features extracts from many of the best known classics from Offenbach’s Can-Can to ‘Ode to Joy’ from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Musical Director Mel Hopkin included many other well-known classical pieces in the concert including pieces by Bach, Liszt, Rossini, Grieg and Holst.

The band also played more popular music – ‘The James Bond Theme’, ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ by Lennon and McCartney, a Mary Poppins selection and a selection of Tina Turner favourites.

The first half ended with ‘Czardas’ by Andre Weignein.  Mel explained to the audience that Czardas is the national dance of Hungary. The dance starts off slow, easy and sedate then ends up at a fast whirling and turning pace - the male will leap, jump, squat and use knee bends etc. while they dance.  He invited the audience to dance along with the music but no-one took him up on the offer!

The band’s resident singer (and trombonist), the very talented Natalie Stafford sang three songs in the Mary Poppins selection and also sang in the final piece Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’.

Mel Hopkin was delighted to welcome five players from the RBL Band, Spalding and two from Kirton Brass Band who joined Holbeach Band for the concert.

The Band’s next performance will be on parade day 30^th April when they will play in the evening at the Gleed Girls Technology College.

30th April - Flower Parade Concert

Following Spalding's Flower Parade, we played a concert at the Gleed Girls Technology College where a caravan rally was being held.  We had a good audience and the concert went well.  We had three guest players from the RBL Band, Spalding plus the Musical Director's son who had come to see the parade.

The programme was very similar to the Spring Concert - we omitted The Middy and opened with Classical Gold.  At the end we played Jerusalem as an encore.

15th May - Ayscoughfee Gardens, Spalding

We were delighted to be invited to perform the opening concert in this season's series of open air concerts in Ayscoughfee Gardens, Spalding.  It was a lovely day with bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky.  Ayscoughfee Hall is undergoing restoration work and is fenced off - the fencing restricted the area where the bands normally play, but we had sufficient space.  We had a wonderful audience of around 200 people who brought their own chairs;  during the interval there were so many people that the cafe in the gardens ran out of ice-cream!

The programme was again very similar to the Spring Concert - we omitted The Middy and opened with Classical Gold.  We also replaced Swinging Rossini with Johnny Ocean's Happy Bandleader.  At the end we played Is this the Way to Amarillo as an encore and had the audience clapping along - we only got the music a couple of weeks ago.

27th May - Horbling Church

	A lovely sunny Friday evening concert in the delightful Horbling Church.  It was a surprise to find the heaters on in the Church, but in fact it was quite cool inside.  We had a large and enthustiastic audience.  The band played well and the musical director said, later, that it was probably the best concert the band had played for a long while. Natalie again sang for us - however the church was quite small and had no microphone or amplification equipment, but her strong voice (and delicate playing from the band) enabled her to be heard. Unfortunately the concert ended prematurely due to the collapse of one of our players just before the last piece.

Spring Programme: