Advent Calendar X

 

As I so nearly observed yesterday "Three down Five to go!" ~ as a reference to my Christmas performances this year, I still have two with Croydon Brass, one with Croydon Symphonic Band and two with the Phoenix Concert Band. Friday night's concert with Phoenix will be very special for me, it will be only the second time this band has played a proper Christmas Concert, and proper "sit down" evening concerts are still a rarity in our annual programme. Last year we were rather feeling our way, this year we are a lot more confident and have a wonderful, varied programme, including three ~ count them! THREE WORLD PREMIERS!! one of them specially arranged for us, the other two will be on general publication after we have played them on Friday.

I think this will be the biggest band we will have put out as over the course of the last year we have acquired several new members, the band is very much about enjoying ourselves, and sharing the joy we have in communal music making with others. We are very much a community band with players of all ages and all abilities. As a proper community band we welcome all comers and seek to both reflect and serve the community as well as be drawn from it.

One of the things about being a community band is that we can always find space for someone, at the moment we would certainly welcome another couple of clarinets, a trombone, a bassoon, and another oboe. 

I always say that it isn't Christmas until I've played Leroy Anderson's A Christmas Festival, well, I played it last Saturday and between the three bands will be playing at least three more times! Each time it will be at a slightly different speed ~ and I'm conducting two of them!