Merry Christmas From Verwood Concert Brass
As Christmas is upon us here is a reminder of the fabulous Verwood Concert Brass Christmas Concert held on Saturday 18th December 2021.
As usual, concert proceedings got underway with Verwood Community Band under the baton of Mike Dunnings with some lively festive tunes with of course plenty of jingle bells coming from the percussion section.
The Acorns new starter group followed on with Bill Ferrier leading them through a selection of their favourite Christmas pieces.
There may be some more budding percussionists after Kevin Smith invited half a dozen youngsters up on stage to shake, rattle and jingle various instruments in accompaniment to the Verwood Concert Brass Band in their up-beat number “Un Mambo Navideno”.
The concert featured a number of solo performances, each being absolutely fantastic. In the first session of Verwood Concert Brass Band’s set Amelia Mullen played a beautiful flugel horn solo of “Away in a Manger” arranged by Peter Graham. Later on “In the Bleak Midwinter” arranged by Jonathan Bates, featured a soprano cornet solo played brilliantly by Andrew Watson.
In the second half Verwood Town Band took to the stage also under the baton of Kevin Smith in which there were further soloist treats; “When a Child is Born” arranged by Darryl Barry, was played superbly by Georgina Carter on trombone. Nathan Timmins then starred in his role playing “The Little Drummer Boy” on, as you might expect, a drum but to great comic effect being distracted with his phone and only being persuaded to stop playing by being showered with snowballs.
More classic Christmas pieces followed in Verwood Concert Brass Band’s closing set which again saw another superb solo performed by principal cornet Elaine Close playing “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” arranged by Mark Freeh.
As one of the staples of the Christmas concert there was of course “The Twelve Days of Christmas” by Matt Kingston, with the audience singing participation ‘ably assisted’ by Trevor White and Mark Fletcher.
In these somewhat strange times it was just fabulous to be able to perform this concert and bring a bit of festive cheer.
In addition various groups of players have been out carolling over the weeks leading up to Christmas day and supported many other Christmas events.
In a new venture players from all of the bands within VCB held a wonderful “Carols by Torchlight” outdoor event at Ferret Green in the centre of Verwood to which several hundred people attended to join in with carol singing. That will now become a regular festive event.
From all at Verwood Concert Brass we wish you a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all again during the course of 2022.