LIGHT MUSIC GOING DOWN A TREAT IN BERKSHIRE

By Geoff Bushell

from both the Light Music Society and the similarly-initialled New London Music Society (NLMS).

Conductor Terrence Lovett founded NLMS in 1981, establishing a choir and orchestra which gave regular concerts in London and the Home Counties. NLMS held its first residential summer music course at Wycombe Abbey School (High Wycombe) in 1982. In 1999 the summer school moved to Queenswood School near Hatfield in Hertfordshire, and then in 2019 to its present Berkshire home at Downe House.

NLMS Music Summer School offers a challenging and enjoyable week of music making in a friendly atmosphere. Two orchestras, a choir, a brass ensemble, a percussion group and a string group provide a wide variety of courses to suit all abilities and interests.

Evenings feature a variety of concerts, as well as 'open' sessions for anyone to join in. For many years at Queenswood there had been a popular Open Light Orchestra session run by oboist John White – he was the principal oboist at Sadlers Wells in the 1960s and is recorded on the famous Goodall Ring cycle. John would source sets of parts from the LMS Library of Light Orchestral Music, and conduct a rehearsal/play-through of favourite pieces of light music, frequently introducing participants to lesser-known gems.

When John decided not to continue, volunteers were sought to keep the session going. Having been an active amateur conductor since 1983, and having performed concerts of light music, I put my hand up, and was invited to run the session in 2020 – although in the event the pandemic conspired to prevent the summer school from running that year and the next.

Orchestra reconvened with sets of parts hired from the LMS library. As the session was open to any summer school member, I had taken the precaution of ordering double sets of woodwind from LMS – this proved to be useful, as an impressive 85 players participated (out of a total summer school contingent of 130). It was pleasing to see nine professional tutors taking part (including two on saxophones), rather than seeking some well-earned time off from leading their courses – such is the popularity of light music.

I had chosen a set of pieces that I thought would appeal widely and generally be not too challenging to sight-read:

Eric Coates – London Everyday Suite

Leroy Anderson – Promenade

Franz Lehar – Gold and Silver Waltz

Ernest Tomlinson – Concert Jig from Silverthorn Suite

Barry Gray arr. Sutherland – Theme from Thunderbirds

Having played through and rehearsed these, I asked participants to vote on which pieces they would like to perform in the remaining time by way of an informal concert, and they chose the Coates, Anderson and Gray. Thus ended a very enjoyable ninety minutes, and everyone said they were looking forward to a similar session next year.

One of the unexpected pleasures of using the LMS library was how carefully sets had been brought together from a variety of sources into playable sets of parts. In earlier years of light music, conductors and other musicians owned their own sets of parts, and even their own ink stamps, but some sets only contained enough parts for a small ballroom-sized ensemble. It's well known that LMS has amassed parts from a huge variety of sources that were discarding their wide variety of ownership marks, some of which are listed below. Thank you, LMS, for going to such trouble to make up such sets for larger ensembles.

Previous owners of some of the Gold and Silver parts:

Aberystwyths [sic] Borough Accountants Office

Arthur John, violinist, Hull

Band 1st Bn. [Battalion] South Staffordshire Regt.

Charles Haberreiter [violin/conductor]

Cyril Broben

Cyril Geor [remainder unreadable]

D.C.E.C. Music Section

Eugene Genin [M.B.E., conductor of Merseyside amateur orchestras]

Herbert J. Sutton

J. Whitehead

Jessie G. Rhoden

Kursaal Orchestra [conductor Louis Voss]

Lido Harries [unclear – may be Harrop]

Louis Voss A.G.S.M. [and his Grand Orchestra]

Nelson Orchestral Society [Lancashire]

Primitive Methodist A.B.C. Scotland Road [Nelson, Lancashire]

The Methodist Orchestra, Seven Kings hundred years, but while selecting for 2023, I shall enjoy listening to my light music CDs, and making more discoveries in the LMS library. For ninety minutes in Berkshire next August, the NLMS Open Light Orchestra will meet and resound again.

My thoughts are now turning to choosing repertoire that participants might enjoy in 2023. As always with my programming, I try to make the instrumentation of a set of pieces reasonably consistent – having once got this badly wrong in a concert of light music when the second oboe observed that being in so few pieces, there was no point coming, and wasn't seen for the rest of the term! As the summer school has a full complement of horn and brass players (who share their time between playing in the brass ensemble course and the two orchestras), as well as the members of the percussion course, it seems prudent to select fuller-scored pieces.

Geoff Bushell co-founded and conducts Didcot Concert Orchestra, and has conducted St Giles Orchestra, Oxford since 1983. Geoff plays the horn and helps with the marketing of NLMS – www.nlmsmusic-summerschool.co.uk