Camborne Youth Band

15th January 2012 - Camborne Youth Band’s New Year Concert - featuring guest Les Neish

Camborne Youth Band were so pleased to have the services of Les Neish, virtuosi Tuba Player, as their special guest for the annual New Year Concert held at the Penventon Park Hotel on Sunday 15th January 2012. If you weren’t there, you missed a treat. Indeed Les was gracious enough to say that the concert the previous year had launched one of his best years as a performer. He hoped that this year’s concert would launch an equally successful year.

As always, the New Year Concert played to a capacity crowd, with a lively programme designed to appeal to all. The band would like to thank Philip Hunt, whose dulcet tones resonated around the venue as he acted as our host for the evening‘s music-making.

The programme began with the fanfare Flame of Independence written by Dan Price, before the band launched into a medley from the film series Pirates of the Caribbean. The first set was rounded off by a piece called Early Morning Train, featuring Cecilia Carlisle on Flugelhorn.

Next was a chance for our guest Les Neish to show off his talents. He began his set with a piece which featured members of the Youth Band, Swing Low, written for the Amsterdam Staff Band by Andrew Mackereth and featuring solos by Les Neish with assistance from the Youth Band’s own Sarah Matthews, Dave Roberts and Laureen Hodge. Next Les played a duet with Camborne Youth Band’s Simon Kendall on Euphonium. They played The Prayer as performed by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli and written by by Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster with this arrangement by Luc Vertommen.

Les left the stage after a real Cornish show of appreciation for his playing. Next the Youth Band began the next set with The Water is Wide. This piece featured the cornet section and was arranged by Andrew Duncan. Next in real contrast, various sections of the band rearranged themselves around the room to perform Reet Petite, sections featured included flugels, horns and cornets. This piece was an arrangement by Sandy Smith of Gordy & Carlo composition. To finish this half of the concert the band played Wall of Sound, composed by Paul Lovatt-Cooper, and to give Alan a rest and chance to listen rather than conduct, this piece was conducted by Les Neish.

After the Interval, came a tribute to our very own Goff Richards who sadly passed away at the end of last year. This tribute came in the form of two very popular pieces of his music Calling Cornwall, and A Special Place, written by Goff to raise money for the Children’s Hospice South West. In between these two Cornish masterpieces was the very popular Bohemian Rhapsody written by Freddie Mercury arranged for brass band by Darrol Barry.

For Les Neish’s final set he chose to show his talent for entertainment by playing Serenade from the Student Prince (Romberg) arranged for Tuba by Patrick Sheridan, arranged for band by David Cathewood, followed by Hora Staccato personally arranged for Les Neish by Andrew Wainwright.

The final part of the evening saw the Youth Band perform All Through the Night, a traditional Welsh Hymn tune and which was arranged by Gordon Langford. This was followed by Toccato from The Suite Boutique, Movement IV and was rounded off by their last piece Enchanted Kingdom, again by a favourite composer of the band Paul Lovatt-Cooper.

Les Neish returned to the podium and as an encore performed a new piece in his repertoire Julio-O, originally written as a Cello solo and totally unaccompanied. This was received very well by the audience who were hugely delighted by the piece and showed their appreciation. The final part of the evening saw speeches and thanks as well as the results of the raffle, which included a huge array of donated items including a £50 meal voucher from the Penventon Park Hotel

(Lin Smith)

14th January 2012 - Solo / Duet / Quartet Competition results

All classes judged by Les Neish

The band would like to place on record their thanks to Les for both judging the competition and for being the guest star in Sunday's New Year concert held at the Penventon Park Hotel, Redruth.