Another magnificent concert with our friends at Cory Band, what a night.
The night before Brass in Concert saw the World famous Cory Band back in York to run their BiC set before the contest. We are so privileged to be invited to share the stage with them when they visit and we love catching up with the players we have come to know so well.
This year was certainly eventful. Cory left Wales in some of the worst weather we’ve seen for a while and were really up against the clock when they got to York. A quick Pizza and rehearsal and we were good to go. The first set was Shepherd Brass and we hope we warmed the audience up for the treat to come. There was however a cloud on the horizon in the shape of Gavin Wynn Saynor, the Cory Eb Bass player who was still on his way from Anglesey in that terrible weather. Gav simply wasn’t going to make it. The only option, someone from Sheps was going to have to step in and “dep” for Cory Band.
There was a very quick run through of what was being played and Cory took the stage with Craig joining their ranks. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more challenging, Phil Harper came on stage to discover that someone had helpfully removed Sheps music from the conductors stand, and had inadvertently taken the Cory band scores with them. The Cory opener was conducted without a score until a rather sheepish player returned the rest of the scores before the second piece started.
After the break it was onwards with the BiC set and Craig was overjoyed to find Gavin had arrived by this time and he wasn’t going to have to play the second half.
In the BiC set, we were treated to a time travelling journey back to the days of JB Arban in France. Anyone who plays a brass instrument will be familiar with the Arban while the non brass players had the Back to the Future references in the set.
Finale time saw both bands come together for a John Williams based set which was sadly cut short due to the limited drivers hours left for the coach drivers who had magnificently navigated Storm Claudia on their journey north. They certainly deserved a commendation for their work that weekend.
We are looking forward to seeing our friends from Cory again in 2026. Watch this space.
