Concert: The Gregson Connection

On 23 April 2016, Jeremy Wise was at Salvation Army Hall Kettering for ‘The Gregson Connection’ – a concert celebrating Edward Gregson’s 70^th birthday, featuring GUS together with the Belcanto Ladies Choir directed by Barry Clark.

The prolific and high quality music output of Edward Gregson over the best part of the last 50 years was celebrated in this excellent joint concert.

The current Midlands’ Champion, Virtuosi GUS Band, has been a mainstay of the Kettering music scene for more than 75 years and was joined by the celebrated ladies voice choir, Belcanto, which has been on fine form too, winning its class at Llangollen Eisteddfod in 2012 and 2015.

The music ranged from Edward’s earliest student output in the 1960s, including the lovely cornet solo Before the Cross, featuring Iain Culross as guest soloist 'depping' for Thomas Fountain, currently in France with the European Youth Brass Band. Iain showed his class in a silky and sympathetic performance and Grant Jameson was also a great crowd- pleaser with his performance of Gregson’s Symphonic Rhapsody, which Edward Gregson revealed he had started in his teens, but got stuck and finish until a few years later. Trevor Groom gave the first broadcast performance of the piece in the early 1970s, so it was fitting that he was amongst the audience.

The Choir sang some real quality music including Edward Gregson’s song Welcome, commissioned specially for the Royal Opening of the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in 1996, in the presence of HM The Queen. The Choir’s programme also featured two movements from Gregson’s Missa Brevis (Gloria and Benedictus), showing beautiful, balanced sound in these very difficult works.
Featuring two major Gregson works - Dances and Arias and Of Distant Memories to end both halves of the concert, GUS played superbly in honouring this leading composer, despite the sheer physical demands of the pieces. The star of the show - Edward Gregson – was also invited to conduct his own Prelude for an Occasion, delighting both the band and the audience.

It is sometimes difficult to attract an audience to events such as this, but thanks mainly to the tireless work of the organisers the hall was well- filled and the audience was rewarded with fine music, carefully prepared and performed by two excellent ensembles at the top of their games. It was the kind of high quality concert that there are too few of now… sadly.

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