Loughborough Concert Band

Saturday February 24th 2018.

The annual Passion Concert is always something we look forward to. There is usually a good audience and we have the opportunity to play whilst supporting of singers and hear other bands and choirs. And all in such a good cause!

Passion was set up in 2009 by Churches Together. Members of the group had identified a need to offer a safe place for young people, right in the heart of the community. It’s a costly enterprise. Their website says it costs around £2000 a month to keep Passion going, so an event like the concert is a very valuable fundraising source.

The evening was compered by Howard Ketton, formerly minister of the Baptist Church in Shepshed, and started with the band playing Ron Goodwin’s Luftwaffe March. We maintained the airborne theme with Come Fly with Me and then St Botolph’s Church Choir took to the stage. Some of their members commemorated the centenary of the struggle for women’s suffrage by wearing the Suffragette sash as they sang the songs of World War One.

The band played two more numbers and then were joined by Louise, a Passion soloist, who sang Somewhere from West Side Story and I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right out of my Hair  from South Pacific.

We closed the first half with a medley from the hit show Les Miserables. After the interval and two opening pieces, the Methodist Church Choir sang songs from My Fair Lady, presumably all rehearsing on the street where you live!

The whole concert ended with a magnificent piece of community singing as the band and all choirs joined the audience for the Last Night of the Proms.

We were a bit depleted with the winter taking its toll on band members but we were very lucky to have such talented deps to call on. It was a fantastic evening which raised the magnificent sum of £1019.45 for Passion.