Boscombe New Horizons

A highlight of the annual Salvation Army calendar in England is the annual New Horizons week held at Butlins resort in Bognor Regis. For the 2009 event, the Boscombe Band (Bandmaster Howard J. Evans) were privileged to present a concert on the evening of Wednesday, 9 September.

The concert kicked off with a classic march, Cairo Red Shield (A. Stanley Raikes). This was followed by Paean, a fine new work from the pen of Dudley Bright. Two of the band’s soloists were featured next, cornet soloist Craig Snell playing Don’t Doubt Him Now and horn soloist Barney Lawrence offering His Eye Is on the Sparrow, both of these solos arranged by Leonard Ballantine. The first half of the program ended with George Marshall’s enduring work Army of the Brave.

Bandmaster Evans’ composition Chassidic Dance began the second half, followed by euphonium soloist John Starkes performing ’Neath the Dublin Skies (Paul Lovatt-Cooper). Bandmaster Evans choose a varied and interesting series of items following this. Goff Richards’ arrangement of I Will Follow Him (as featured in the motion picture Sister Act), Kenneth Downies’s setting of Myfanwy, and the well-known selection Gift for His Altar (Kenneth Downie) were included.

Paul Lovatt-Cooper, composer-in-residence of the famous Black Dyke Band, has rapidly become one of the most highly regarded young composers in the brass band world. His composition Vitae Aeternum is on its way to becoming a “modern classic” in Salvation Army banding, and was the “big number” in the second half. The concert concluded, appropriately, with I’ll Walk with God (Goff Richards).