CD: United
Woodfalls Band conducted by Robert ChildsGuest soloist: James Fountain
UNITED
Woodfalls Band
Conductor: Dr. Robert Childs
Guest soloist: James Fountain
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The title of this Prima Vista Musikk release stems from the partnership between Woodfalls Band and its sponsor, United Rental Systems. However, it also unites the band and its conductor, Robert Childs, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s James Fountain, and brings together a school of young talented composers, whose music is extensively featured here, including Jonathan Bates, Ben Hollings, Lucy Pankhurst, Steven Ponsford, Christian Overhead, Andrew Baker and Paul McGee.
Jonathan Bates is represented by Londinium, which portrays the capital from Roman times to the present, and St. Peter’s, which retains the same theme – the title referring to a chapel at the Tower. Ben Hollings supplies First Light, one of the solos for guest cornet/piccolo trumpet player, James Fountain, and also Lament, in which he teams up with Matthew Rowe (euphonium). This pays tribute to the known six people, but almost certainly many more who lost their lives in the Great Fire of London, in 1666. A reflective moment in contrast to the more well-known solos, From the Shores of the Mighty Pacific in a new arrangement from Robert Childs, and Ray Farr’s take on Bubbles was a Cheerleader. There is no doubting the class playing of the soloist and this is a real bonus to the album.
Lucid Perspectives provides a weightier moment in the middle of a programme, primarily at the lighter end of the scale. Paul McGee was the catalyst behind this work, deciding that 2016 was the right time to write a collaborative piece together with Lucy Pankhurst and Andrew Baker. The result – two-minute vignettes incorporating the view from the composer’s window when writing, which created an excellent piece and some different musical language for the Section 1 youth bands that tackled it at the 2018 North American Championships.
Old favourites featured, mainly dressed up in new clothes, include Liberty Bell and The Waltonian March, but it is the new music and the guest soloist, James Fountain, that make this an enjoyable and enterprising production. My slight frustration with publisher-initiated discs continues because they have this tendency to throw something into the mix that doesn’t really fit. Here it is – Steven Ponsford’s Excelsis!, which portrays some of the wonder and excitement of Christmas. That said, there is always the ‘skip’ on the remote control until December, when that track would then neatly fit!
TIM MUTUM
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