Concert: The Band of the Royal Air Force College
RAF College Band delights with UK ‘fly-past tour20 October
The Band of the Royal Air Force College
Conductor: Wing Commander Piers Morrell
Royal Hall, Harrogate
20 October
The Royal Air Force College Band is currently enjoying its annual UK musical fly- past and I was lucky enough to sample its landing in Harrogate’s Royal Concert Hall, when the usual capacity audience was treated to a night of full-blown entertainment, this year themed American Legends to salute the US Air Force’s 70th anniversary.
The RAF’s ‘In Concert’ tour is staged annually in aid of the service’s Charitable Trust, supported by a couple of heavyweights in the aeronautical industry - Lockhead Martin and BAE Systems.
The 2017 tour is under the new musical direction of Wing Commander Piers Morrell, Principal Director of Music - the band’s previous leader, Wing Commander Duncan Stubbs, having retired earlier this year after
a distinguished career with the RAF Music Services.
With his relaxed conducting style and easy charm, Duncan Stubbs was something of a favourite with audiences, but it quickly became evident that Wing Commander Morrell is developing his own particular rapport with them too. Throw in the witty presentation of the ‘Voice of the Lottery Balls’ and ‘Strictly’, Alan Dedicoat, some accomplished soloists, West End quality vocalists, and a packed programme of evergreen classics that have become part of our lives (if you’re of the more mature vintage, that is), and the mix was right for
a night of easy-listening and patriotic fervour.
Celebrating the close relationship and camaraderie between British and USA flying services, the concert brought smiles to faces with familiar numbers like Hoe-Down (from Rodeo), Stars and Stripes Forever, America the Beautiful, American Pop Legends, Holyrood/The United States Air Force Song, I Left my Heart in San Francisco and New York, New York.
Both concert halves also contained emotional high points including Rossano Galante’s Afterlife, Michael Kamen’s Band of Brothers theme from the film of the same name about Easy Company, and John Williams’s Hymn to the Fallen from the 1998 Oscar-winning epic film, Saving Private Ryan.
Clarinettist, SAC Sabrina Heywood - winner of the RAF Charitable Trust’s Soloist Competition this year - gave a startlingly impressive performance
of the taxing Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in Eb Major Allegro (Weber, arranged Brown) in the first half, whilst composer Philip Sparke’s vivacious watery celebration, From Sea to Shining Sea, led into Sousa’s Hands Across the Sea, inspiring eternal friendship. It was then time for the keenly anticipated, flag-waving finale to Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 and the Royal Air
Force March Past.
You cannot but admire the Royal Air Force’s musical versatility, instrumental competence and sheer capacity to entertain when on the concert platform. The Band of the Royal Air Force College and its new leader, Piers Morrell,
can be confident that they impressed and entertained in equal measure, and that the returning audience departed happy again.
NICOLA BLAND
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