Bach to the Beach Boys
Graham Wilson reports on the Concert Band’s activities:
First Concert for 2017 Sunday 12th March
The band are well into rehearsals for our first concert of the year. This will again be raising money for St Helena Hospice at Clacton’s West Cliff Theatre. This year’s concert features music from “Bach to the Beach Boys”, ranging from Vaughan-Williams, Henry Mancini and Waldteufel to South Pacific, Glenn Miller and the Beatles…so come along for a great afternoon of music on Sunday 12th March at 3pm. Tickets are just £8 adults, £7 concessions, and available from the Theatre Box Office on 01255 433344.
£3,200 Raised for Charities
Our activities last year concluded with a wonderful Christmas Concert in Coggeshall (pictured above). The near capacity audience enjoyed an evening of Christmas music from Vaughan-Williams and Irving Berlin through to Mariah Carey and The Pogues. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a lovely festive feel, and we were delighted that the concert raised over £1000 for The J’s Hospice. This took the total amount raised for charities during 2016 to over £3,200.
Busy Autumn
Prior to that, the band were very busy around the village during the autumn. We held an open rehearsal at Heathlands in September, a concert in the Church of St Mary in November and, of course, played for the village Remembrance Service. Our November concert in the village raised £250 for Children In Need; the band also donated £250 from its own funds to the appeal for West Bergholt Old Church. Over the years we’ve raised over £4,000 for the Church of St Mary and its charities, including at 2004’s impromptu “Last Night Of The Proms In A Barn” when the heavens opened unexpectedly, so we were delighted to add to the amount we’ve raised for good causes within the village.
Workshop
We also held a primary school workshop at Heathlands in October, which surprisingly was the first one we’ve held there, as historically the school musicians were encouraged to join the band by its founder Sid Cooper who taught music there. These days our approach to maintaining a wide range of ages in the band is to hold regular primary school workshops, which have proven to be an incredibly popular and fun way for us to encourage tomorrow’s musicians. We were delighted to see so many players from Heathlands join us for the workshop and perform a wonderful “mini concert” at the end of it, and to see such enthusiasm for music at the school. The final word goes to somebody at the workshop…“The band made everyone feel very welcome indeed – what a fun afternoon!”
Keep in Touch
As always, details on all of our events are available on the band website www.wbcb.org. New players of any age are always welcome. Come and see us on Friday evenings at Heathlands School, including at our next Open Rehearsal on Friday 5th May. We look forward to seeing you at some of our events this year…and wish you a belated happy new year.