In 2022 we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams, and there is no better way to do so than with this album of brass band music, released on 5 August.
Vaughan Williams wrote three pieces for brass band - Henry the Fifth Overture, Prelude on Three Welsh Hymns and Variations for Brass Band, the latter commissioned for the National Brass Band Championships in 1957.
This album brings together these works with many new arrangements of some popular pieces by Paul Hindmarsh (who curated and produced the album) and Phillip Littlemore. Here is the track list:
A Flourish for Band
English Folk Songs Suite
Sea Songs
Henry the Fifth
The Truth from Above
Prelude on Rhosymedre
Suite from 49th Parallel
Prelude on Three Welsh Hymn Tunes
Tuba Concerto in F minor (soloist: Ross Knight)
Variations for Brass Band
Total playing time: 79’30”
The award-winning Tredegar Town Band is conducted by Martyn Brabbins and Ian Porthouse. The recording was made in Brangwyn Hall, Swansea and engineered by Steve Portnoi.
Ian Porthouse took up the baton with Tredegar Town Band in 2008 and has led the band to the National Finals every year since. Ian is also the only conductor ever to lead a band to victory at the Grand Shield and British Open in the same year with Tredegar’s memorable double in 2010. He is currently Director of Brass Band Studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire and is in high demand as a professional conductor, tutor and adjudicator.
Martyn Brabbins is well known as a conductor; his many recordings include the complete cycle of nine symphonies by Vaughan Williams (for Hyperion) and Albion’s Grammy nominated album Discoveries. In his youth he learned to play first the euphonium and then the trombone, playing with the Towcester Studio Brass Band, so his guest conductorship on this album sees him making a welcome return to his roots. His musical directorship of English National Opera also saw him conducting Vaughan Williams’s opera The Pilgrim’s Progress. He is President of the Havergal Brian Society, and founder and co-director of a training course for conductors at the St. Magnus International Festival in Orkney.
Ross Knight is the Solo Tuba player of l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and, since September 2022, the Professor of Tuba at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. He has performed as soloist with l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, BBC Concert Orchestra, Tredegar Town Band and Grimethorpe Colliery Band. He was awarded 2nd Place and the Overall Winner of the Category Tuba of the 2019 Aeolus International Competition for Wind Instruments.
The origins of Tredegar Town Band date back to 1849, and the band was formally constituted in 1876. Over the last 40 years they have become one of the world’s elite brass band performers, claiming the British Open title in 2010 and again in 2013. In 2022 they came 4th at the European Championships in Birmingham.
14 окт 2024
