Review: Community Music Festival a great success (From Bucks Free Press)

Review: Community Music Festival a great success

1:01pm Monday 10th October 2011 in Freetime By Stan Meares

I CONFIDENTLY predict that the 9th October 2011 will go down in local musical circles as the date that launched the Community Music Fest at Chesham’s Elgiva Hall.. For this event is bound to carry on year after year if the high standards of these local, largely amateur groups from Amersham and Chesham continue and the resulting applause from the audience is anything to go by.

The Amersham Band, fresh from their multiple successes in the Southern Counties Area Band Competition, started the ball rolling with Richards Strauss’s suitably rousing Fest Musik der Stadt Wein.

Then on came Chesham’ s Chrysalis Community Choir, accompanied on the electric piano by Elaine Brown, and conducted by the dynamic Mandy Watsham-Dunstall. Their central number was a Medley from Les Miserables (Boublil & Schonberg), with solo vocalist Nikki Pulllen, followed by Loes’ This Little Light of Mine.

This well trained choir had admirable tone and control. They were able to switch their styles and stances effortlessly as often required. Their diction was good and their enthusiasm unbounded. What is more, they all were willing really to open their mouths - a trait not too common in the South. Additionally it was doubly encouraging to see so many young people participating.

The Amersham A Canella possessed all the good points of their Chesham colleagues, plus they did not use microphones - always a bonus in my view. Lynne Owen conduced this youthful troupe with vigour and occasional subtlety, in pieces such as Blue Skies (Irving Berlin) and the traditional Swing Low, Sweet Chariot - with the inevitable joke about the English rugby team.

A member of the choir, Hari Birtles, who had arranged Bob Dylan’s To Make You Feel My Love, then successfully took over the conducting, concluding with two typical pieces by Fats Waller.

Then came the Amersham Band under their brilliant conductor Paul Fisher. The difference he has brought to the band in his two years tenure is remarkable. The precision and crispness of sound is now excellent. And the lower instruments particularly impressed with their rendering of Danny Elfman’s Batman the Movie.

As if not enough, we had as guest trumpeter Andy Greenwood from the West End. His performance of Birdland (Zawubul) was quite remarkable - not only did he sound positively birdlike when required, but his command of the high notes of his trumpet sent his blasts sky high.

For the Finale, Lionel Richie’s, All Night Long, the band, both choirs and Andy Greewood joined forces to achieve the Fest’s aim, namely “an extravaganza of popular music for all the family”. One constructive comment - though difficult in The Elgiva - perhaps the choirs could be so placed that they do not have to sing through the band?

To conclude, there was also the compere, Bryn Neal, who talked us through the changes on stage. His jokes reminded one of those told by the late and great Les Dawson. That is compliment,