April - ConsTest & Morley!
April with Flowers
It has been just over a month since we were crowned West of England Champions in Torquay, and we’ve been busy! Since then, we’ve continued our performing around the country with concerts in Birmingham and Morley, and we’ll soon be in Badminton, and Newbury.
West of England Regional Champions 2024
ConsTest Gala Concert
ConsTest is a relatively new brass band competition in the Midlands which was founded by our former second cornet player Mikey Foley-Hall. Mikey started this all section own-choice test piece contest while studying at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and its first iteration received such excellent feedback from the banding community that he brought it back this year. Although Mikey has moved home to West Yorkshire since finishing his studies, he remains a very good friend of the band, and we were absolutely delighted to support the event by performing a pre-results gala concert.
On stage at ConsTest
We thoroughly enjoyed performing our ‘Alice in Wonderland’ set again, featuring Brass in Concert 2023 ‘Best Soloist’ Emily Evans on tenor horn with Curiouser and Curiouser by Lucy Pankhurst. We took full advantage of the facilities at the Bradshaw Hall, incorporating props and multimedia presentation to transport the audience to the world of Wonderland.
We also featured soprano cornet soloist Paul Richards, who chose to play Flowerdale by Philip Sparke, one of the most iconic pieces in the soprano cornet repertoire.. Paul occupies legendary status in the banding community for his superb sound, and this performance certainly lived up to the expectation, the applause continuing for some considerable time after the final note of the piece.
Paul Richards in action!
The event was professionally recorded by NXTOD, and you can listen to the full 45 minute performance for £2.99 on their website. In addition to the livestream, there was a photographer on hand and we’d like to say a huge thank you to Evie from Redfern Reels for the fantastic shots she captured!
All at Flowers would like to congratulate Mikey and the entire organising team for another hugely successful contest, as well as the overall winners Sovereign Brass. We hope the event will return again in 2025.
Alice in Wonderland (in Birmingham!)
Morley Town Hall
We were thrilled to be invited back to Morley Town Hall as part of the Leeds International Concert Series. It has been a few years since our last visit ‘up north’ to Morley and we always love performing to this enthusiastic and discerning crowd of brass band fans.
Morley Town Hall
Our MD Paul Holland chose a diverse and demanding set of music for this concert including our quintet of ‘Alice’ pieces commissioned especially for the band, the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 4, and the British Open 2023 test piece Sand and Stars by Thierry Deleruyelle.
Our programme included solos for four principal players: Luke Barker (cornet) gave a stunning rendition of Tom Davoren’s Alaw; Emily Evans (tenor horn) resumed her role as ‘Alice’ making incredibly challenging music sound easy; Chris Thomas (trombone) gave a superbly controlled and stylish performance of Stardust; and Dan Thomas (euphonium) closed the show with the flamboyant and exciting Carnival of Venice.
Thank you to everyone in the audience for your kind words and generous applause. We hope to be back again soon!
Morley Town Hall
What’s next?
Flowers will return to Badminton Horse Trials this year, at which we hope we’ll be blessed by better weather than last year’s downpours! We’ll be performing in the showjumping arena, and will once again perform the National Anthem of the winning rider. If you are there on the day, please do say hello.
Badminton Horse Trials 2023… lets hope for a sunnier day!
Newbury Spring Festival
Our next concert performance will be at Newbury Spring Festival on Sunday 19th May. This is another opportunity to hear Sand and Stars, ‘Alice’ as well as a major work by Paul Mealor. Newbury Spring Festival is a very prestigious event, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing there the night before us, so please do come along and show your support for the band at what is shaping up to be a truly fantastic concert!