Cathedral packed for musical tribute to Cory’s Ian
ON Tuesday, March 1, the Cory Band and the Pendyrus Male Choir presented a St David’s Day concert at the magnificent venue of Llandaff Cathedral to celebrate the life of Ian Williams, the distinguished Principal Cornet of the Cory Band for 20 years, who very sadly passed away, so prematurely, on St David’s Day in 2018.
The last time the Cory Band played at this iconic venue was four years ago at Ian’s funeral.
Ian was Principal Cornet with Cory for 20 years and led the band to every major title. He was a very talented cornet player and an inspirational leader with a generous nature and ready smile.
The present Musical Director of Cory is Philip Harper and he was able to give previous conductors of Cory, whom Ian had played for, the opportunity to celebrate Ian’s life by introducing Robert Childs to conduct Castell Coch by T J Powell and later in the programme Jeremy Wise was introduced to the audience to conduct the march Celebration by y Leslie Condon.
I was accompanied anied to the concert by Ebbw Valley alley cornet player Peter Thomas, who drove from Ebbw Vale to Llandaff on a very miserable ble evening, weather er wise, over heavily ly congested roads.
Having missed d a left turn to get et to the cathedral al due to being in the he wrong lane we found ourselves s in no man’s land in n backstreets with no sight of any directions to o the cathedral.
Twenty minutes later we found the venue, but could find no parking space. Another 20 minutes went by just looking for a place to park and eventually found one about 15 minutes walk from the venue.
We arrived, having missed the opening number Enter the Galaxies by Paul Lovatt-Cooper.
As we were late we found ourselves seated in the choir stalls behind the band and choir, but we could hear everything.
Our frustrating journey tensions just melted away in the lovely welcoming atmosphere of exceptionally beautiful playing and some really excellent singing from the choir. Being there was worth the frustrating journey 10 times over.
Tom Hutchinson’s heart rending performance brought br a tear to the eye, as did the haunting sou sound of both flugel player Helen Williams Will and trombone tro soloist. ist
Philip Harper mentioned why Ian never played a solo from memory. He always had the music when he played a solo with the band.
The reason for this was that on one occasion he was playing a solo called Cleopatra, which involved a lot of triple tonguing passages he suddenly realised that he was playing a similar passage from an entirely different solo called Pandora! His comment afterwards was ‘I think I have discovered a new solo called Cleodora!’
The Pendyrus Choir chose an excellent programme and both Peter and I found ourselves quietly joining in on most of their very popular numbers like Bring Him Home, Softly As I Leave you, Gwahoddiad and Cwm Rhondda.
It was a great evening and a very memorable one which certainly achieved its purpose. All proceeds from this concert will be donated to British Heart Foundation.
The cathedral was filled to capacity and Austin Davies at the door said that, for the first time ever, all programmes had been sold. I found this out as I went looking for a programme at half-time and of course could not find one. I found Gwyn Thomas, ex Cory soprano player and asked if he could help find me a programme.
He went off looking and found me later with a programme, which I certainly appreciated.
What a great evening it turned out to be and it will be remembered for a very long time.
Regional contests started on February 26. There are eight regions namely: The Midlands, North West England, North of England, London and Southern Counties, West of England, Yorkshire, Scotland and Wales.
Each region has five grades of bands with the best bands being in the Championship Section, then down through the First Section, Second Section, Third Section to the Fourth Section, just like the football leagues.
The regional contests are the qualifying contests with the best two bands in each section going on to play in the final of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain which takes place in the Royal Albert Hall, London, for the Championship Section and at the Centaur Hall Cheltenham Racecourse for all the other sections in the autumn.
The same test pieces are used for all sections throughout the regions. This year’s music for the Championship Section is Contest Music by Wilfred Heaton.
The First Section test piece is Spectrum by Gilbert Vinter and the Second Section test piece is Aeronauts by Goff Richards, while the Third Section play Facets of Glass by Gordon Langford and the Fourth Section have Argos by Stephen Hodel.