The opening concert of our 2015-2016 found us at the beautiful Westside Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, NJ. We were received very well upon arrival and we were in for a great day at this great looking church.
Our concert today started with “Raise the Song” by Simon Morton and was quickly followed up with “Brooklyn Citadel” by William Bearchell. The next little section of our concert featured our two soloists for the day, Gordon Ward (Cornet) and Matthew Luhn (Trombone). Gordon has been playing “Maid of the Mist” for our last few engagements and was pleased to feature that again and did a fine job. This was the first performance for Matt on “Fiesta” by Peter Graham and was played very well, as expected. This is a fun piece that will be used in the months to come.
Most of the remainder of the concert featured items that are fairly new. The music of Kenneth Downie is always a challenge and enjoyable and we have just recently added “Jesus Shall Conquer” to the repertoire and is a wonderful addition. “The Prayer” is a well-known song that NYSB alumni Roger Trigg has beautifully arranged for the band to play and was very received by the very friendly audience at the church.
Andrew Mackereth, fresh off his visit as the guest at Star Lake Musicamp, has arranged a few tunes made famous by the Beatles. Today we were happy to feature “Good Night” and “Penny Lane” and you should expect to see a few more of these arrangements in the coming months. Special mention to our soprano player Chris Ward for his fine work on “Penny Lane”.
Our concert today finished up with Eric Ball’s “Kingdom Triumphant”. We have used this piece quite often recently but never gets old. This is spectacular music and was a wonderful treat to play in such a great sounding room. The audience clearly loved this piece as well as the conclusion of the piece was quickly met with a standing ovation.
This was a wonderful start to our season and we look forward to the many great things that are on our calendar this year. Many thanks to the team at Westside and certainly look forward to coming back again sometime.
