Saturday 19th June proved to be a sweltering day for all as the 25th Chipping Sodbury Festival got into full swing with the annual ‘Last Night Of The Proms’ taking place at Chipping Sodbury town hall featuring The Flowers Band and the beautiful vocal talents of Daniella Beck.

In what is the highlight of the festival, Flowers provided the packed audience with an entertaining programme under the direction of guest musical director for the evening Dr. Chris Davis OBE. The band opened up the evenings proceedings with Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s stirring composition ‘Walking With Heroes’, before delighting the audience with a swaggering rendition of the march ‘The Australasian.

Next it was the turn of guest soprano cornet Paul Richards (who kindly stepped in for the holidaying Paul Eddy). Paul chose to play Leoncavallo’s gorgeous melody ’On With The Motley’, which was played with great musicality and passion by the soloist. The jazz classic ‘Poinciana’ by Nat Simon and Buddy Bernier was next up before things calmed down with a relatively new piece for brass band entitled ‘O Magnum Mysterium’. This haunting but beautiful composition was premiered by the Leyland Band at the Brass In Concert championships in 2009 (it has to be heard to be believed).

The second half of the concert started with a Latino feel as the band brisked through ‘Valero’ followed by an arrangement of ‘old blue eyes’ classics entitled ‘Salute To Sinatra’ by the bands’ former musical director Philip Harper which had everyone singing in the aisles! Trombone soloist Robert Marsh was next up to the plate with a cracking performance of the swing number ‘Blue John’ by Peter Kneale before the band rounded off the serious stuff with the Shostakovich classic ‘Festive Overture. It was now time for the audience to let their hair down with the start of the ‘Proms’ section of the concert and the introduction of the evenings guest vocalist Miss Daniella Beck. The thunderous march ‘Arnhem’ kicked off proceedings followed by a medley of ‘British Sea Songs’, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Pomp & Circumstance No. 1′.

‘Salute To Heroes’ rounded off the evenings performance, which undoubtedly brought many a tear to former RAF veterans who were present in the audience. There was still time for an encore in the shape of ‘Toccata in D Minor’ by Bach but based on the version performed by the group ‘Sky’ which made for a rousing and fitting finale to the evenings programme.

The band look forward to returning to Chipping Sodbury next year!