r
Programme Notes STOURBRIDGE YOUTH SWING BAND Musical Director: John Saunders Soloist: Kenny Baker Eager Beaver Mission 459 Disco Kid
Stan Kenton Kenny Baker Ralph Gingery This Swing Band comprises 18 members of the full Stourbridge Concert Band who, at the beginning of this year, told their Musical Director of their interest and desire to play the Big Band sounds of the 30s and the 40s. As a result, scores were begged and borrowed and impromptu get-togethers were held after full Concert Band rehearsals. The ensuing sound encouraged their Musical Director to enter them in the National Festival of Music for Youth Big Band section. They had only previously appeared in public on four occasions before the July appearance at the Royal Festival Hall (and only then as an added attraction in the programme of the Stourbridge Concert Band). In the few months of Big Band Jazz their music has included pieces from 30s right up to the 80s . Eager Beaver-Stan Kenton This is the classic swinger by Stan Kenton and typifies the popular music of the 40s . Mission 459-Kenny Baker Mission 459 features the composer himself. Disco Kid - Ralph Gingery Disco Kid is a 1980 composition in today 's Disco idiom.
Their programme, reflecting an evening's entertainment at the Court of King Henry VIII, includes a processional Pavan, a sprightly Galliard, an Ayre, with the solo voice accompanied by lute (treble viol played in pizzicato) and two tenor viols, concluding with a lively Branle. Much of the melodic and rhythmic decoration was initiated by these children - a basic right allowed to musicians of that time, and much enjoyed by these young players .
Killg Edward Vi College Orchestra , Stollrbridge
KING EDWARD VI COLLEGE ORCHESTRA, STOURBRIDGE Conductor: John Griswold Special Guest: Jacques Loussier Uprising
Jacques Lou5sier
Stourbridge is in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the county of West Midlands, 12 miles from Birmingham. King Edward's, formerly a Boys' Grammar School, is an open-access Sixth Form College. Music plays an important part in the life of the college, with a number of large and small instrumental and vocal ensembles. The number and variety of the ensembles varies from year to year, but the main ones include a wind band, swing band, choral society, chamber orchestra and various chamber music groups, in addition to the College Orchestra which is performing this evening. The members of the orchestra are very honoured to be invited to appear at the Schools Prom, particularly to play with such an international star as Jacques Loussier. Stollrbridge YOllth Swillg Balld, West iHidlallds
ST PAUL'S EARLY MUSIC GROUP Conductor: Rosemary Fleet Pavan Arbeau ) arr. GalIiard "La Manfrolina" Anon. Rosemary Since First I Saw Your Face Ford Fleet Branle "Les Bouffons" Phalese The St Paul's Early Music Group includes dancers, singers and instrumentalists, aged between eight and 11 years old, who learn viols, recorders and cortols with their teacher, Rosemary Fleet, during breaktimes at St Paul's Primary School in Hastings. The group, varying in size to suit the many concerts at which they appear, perform dances and ayres in appropriate costume.
16
Uprising-Jacques Loussier Loussier has composed this work especially for the Schools Prom and tonight's performance with the King Edward VI College Orchestra is the first public performance. Titled Uprising, this concerto for piano and orchestra portrays man's struggle in life, and for life, with his realization that hope must never die. It is sketched in four moods. The fIrSt reflects man's fight for life and his early desire for freedom. In the second, we see all his hopes for the future, the bright 'canvas' he maps out, his easy spirit of confidence and optimism. But despair and frustration begin to invade as his hopes and plans are shattered by the very environment in which he exists. Through this spirit of disillusionment, however, resistance and rebellion stir within him , and in the process man discovers his deeper layers of resources, and this inner drive for freedom fuels his determination and strength to conquer.