The Cobham Band on Sunday 1st August, 2010 returned to central London, under the musical directorship of David Ruel, to perform at the prestigious venue of St. James’s Royal Park, London. The concert opened in true traditional brass band style with ‘The New Colonial March’ followed by a varied and entertaining programme, which included brass band classics, traditional and popular music.
The afternoon’s concert by the band was warmly received by an audience in the hundreds of tourists and band enthusiasts and was brought to a close with the bands signature march, ‘True and Trusty’ followed by The National Anthem.
Programme:
SESSION A: 15.00hrs to 16.20hrs
The New Colonial March (March)
HMS Pinafore (Light Opera)
Elvira Madigan (Classic – Up to date)
La Cucaracha (Traditional)
Moon River (Song / Waltz)
Miss Unpredictable (Suite)
Words (Popular)
Sway (Mambo)
Smile (Film Theme)
Rondeau (Baroque)
La Vie En Rose (Song Popular)
The Round Tower March (March)
SESSION B: 17.00hrs to 18.15hrs
Blaze Away (March)
Beauty & The Beast (Film Theme)
A Hard Day’s Night (Popular)
Edelweiss (Musical / Waltz)
Eternal Flame (Popular)
Sweet Gingerbread Man (Traditional)
My Way (Popular/Song)
Anton Aus Tirol (Popular)
Et Maintenant (Popular/Song)
Make Me A Channel of Your Peace (Hymn)
Je Ne Regrette Rien (Popular/Song)
True & Trusty (March)
The National Anthem
With thanks to: Artist Representation by Paul Rafferty & Photographs by Sergio Amiti
A tenor horn gallop?
Not quite, but “frolicking trombones” (Reginald Heath’s “Frolic for Trombones”) were in action on Saturday 25th July at the Thames Ditton Regatta (right) as The Cobham Band accompanied the races along the river to the excited cheers of the club members.
And the Cobham Band’s irrepressible trombones were frolicking again on Sunday 26th in Greenwich Park to mark the Royal Park’s three year countdown to London’s 2012 Olympics.
The band was straight out of the blocks on the downbeat of their Musical Director, David Ruel, with a blistering rendition of “Westward Ho!” which got the crowd’s feet tapping.
And during their two sets as part of a well-organised world musical “Heatwave” event in Greenwich Park, the band took the audience to South America (‘Gabriel’s Oboe’, from the Mission), New Zealand (‘Hine-e-Hine’), America (‘Flashdance – What a Feeling’), Spain (‘Amparito Roca’), Germany (‘Beethoven’s Romance’) and Africa (‘Zambezi’) and back home again with plenty of British brass band classics; a truly Olympian programme as a prelude to London 2012.
Canon Jane Hedges welcomed The Cobham Band back for a second year to play as part of the season of free summer band concerts in Westminster Abbey’s college gardens.
But as a number of dark clouds loomed ominously, she warned “Today, 15th July, is St Swithin’s day; if it rains, legend says that the rain will continue for forty days”. The crowd of lunchtime picnickers fearfully looked up at the skies as the band struck up with the rousing Spanish march “El Abanico” under the baton of their Musical Director David Ruel.
Perhaps this Mediterranean opener encouraged the sun out, or maybe the band’s blowing parted the clouds just long enough for the concert to be untroubled by rain, so when “Cliff” made an appearance in the programme (in the form of Derek Broadbent’s arrangement of some of the singer’s popular hits), thankfully it wasn’t against a backdrop of rain and umbrellas (remember Wimbledon in 1996?)
The band have already been invited to play again as part of next year’s season in 2010 and have enthusiastically accepted for what has become a popular fixture it seems with audiences and certainly with the band who delight in playing in such an historic and beautiful venue.
