Loughborough Concert Band

Loughborough Lions booked us for the second year running to play a Last Night of the Proms concert. The audience restrained themselves as patiently as possible through the first half of the programme: they knew what they had come to hear and were looking forward to the old favourites at the end!

The first half of the programme included Kevin Massey taking the solo for the hauntingly beautiful arrangement of I Dreamed a Dream, a World War One Medley arranged by audience member Roger Parsons and the March Lorraine (nicknamed Quiche in the sax section.)

After an interval in which band and audience enjoyed a delicious selection of refreshments, we opened with Elgar’s Seventeen Come Sunday from the English Folk Song Suite. This was followed with the mournful Theme from Schindler’s List which featured solos from Wendy Miller on alto saxophone, Paula Gardner on oboe and  Yvonne Renouf on flute. But the audience was ready – they knew what was coming and a programme that included Humoresque and Palladio served as an appetiser to the main event.

And when it finally came the audience did not disappoint. They were roused to jig along and tap their feet through Fantasia on British Sea Songs and sing with passion the evocative words to Jerusalem. But nothing could eclipse Pomp and Circumstance; they sang their hearts out in a way to rival the promenaders at the Royal Albert Hall!