Saturday 7 June 2025 – St Mary’s Parish Church, Scarborough
Welcome to our summer concert in Scarborough, which celebrates the Yorkshire region’s character and coastal landscape through music. The programme features original compositions and arrangements for wind orchestra by British and American composers, including two works by our musical director Keiron Anderson. Some of the featured pieces were directly inspired by Yorkshire while others have broader influences in seas or rivers, hills or cities that parallel our own. Let us take you on a musical journey through the best our wonderful county has to offer, with spectacular sounds and moving moments.
Programme
A Yorkshire Overture: Philip Sparke
East Coast Pictures: Nigel Hess
1. Shelter Island
2. The Catskills
3. New York
Radio Days: Keiron Anderson
1. Workers Playtime
2. Listen With Mother
3. Down Your Way
INTERVAL
A Moorside Suite: Holst, arr. Denis Wright
1. Scherzo
2. Nocturne
3. March
Shenandoah: Frank Ticheli
Las Incantadas: Keiron Anderson
Lux Perpetua: Frank Ticheli
Philip Sparke: A Yorkshire Overture
Philip Sparke is a British composer specialising in music for concert band and brass band. Many of his works have been chosen as test pieces for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain. He has won several awards and competitions, including the European Broadcasting Union New Music for Band Competition three times with commissions from the BBC.
Sparke has built strong relationships with both Japan and the USA, where his works have twice won the National Band Association / William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest. Having previously combined composition with work as a conductor and adjudicator, he became a full-time composer with the formation of his own publishing company in 2000.
A Yorkshire Overture was commissioned by the York based music shop Banks and Sons and composed in 1991. It was written for a festival involving school bands from across Yorkshire, and is in a tuneful, accessible style. A grand opening introduces a light-hearted theme, which in turn is followed by a stately melody in the brass, decorated by woodwind flourishes. The themes develop and the main tune is repeated before a spirited coda brings the piece to a rousing end.
Nigel Hess: East Coast Pictures
1. Shelter Island
2. The Catskills
3. New York
Nigel Hess is a British composer best known for his soundtracks for television, film and theatre, including many familiar theme tunes such as Maigret and Ladies in Lavender. While composer with the Royal Shakespeare Company he wrote twenty scores for their productions. More recently he was one of the composers chosen to compose a piece for the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla.
East Coast Pictures was commissioned by the British Youth Wind Orchestra in 2000 and has become a favourite piece in the repertoire. The work was inspired by visits the composer had made to a specific area of the east coast of America, and the landscapes and people he encountered there. It is constructed in three movements, representing Shelter Island, (a small island literally sheltering near the end of the more well-known Long Island), the Catskill Mountains, and New York City.
Although written about the American east coast, the movements could just as easily describe Yorkshire itself with its mix of eastern coastal landscapes, inland hills and cities. The first movement pictures a winter weekend on Shelter Island with its sea mists and driving rain. The second recalls the peaceful and impressive mountain scenery of the Catskills and features the trumpet as soloist. The third movement takes us to the Manhattan area of New York in an exciting, fast paced and busy portrait of life in the big city.
Fun fact: Nigel Hess is the great nephew of the British pianist Dame Myra Hess and is also a relative of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson.
Keiron Anderson: Radio Days
1. Workers Playtime
2. Listen With Mother
3. Down Your Way
Radio Days by our Musical Director Keiron Anderson is an affectionate look back in time to the popular radio programmes of the past. The three movements are written in the style of old-fashioned radio show tunes and are either preceded or brought to a close by the unmistakable voices of the BBC Light Programme announcers of the time.
The first movement is reminiscent of the theme tune to ‘Music While You Work’ by the American composer Eric Coates. A cymbal crash, drum roll and fanfare introduce a jaunty, upbeat melody that suggests the hustle and bustle of a busy working life. The music portrays the fun and games of break time before the workers get back down to work.
“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.” In the second movement we are reminded of the popular children’s radio show of the fifties and sixties, featuring a mix of nursery rhymes, stories and music for the under-fives and their mothers. Each episode ended with the Berceuse from Faure’s Dolly Suite played on the piano. Like the Faure, this movement has a tender, lilting feel with a wistful melody above waves of gently shifting chords.
Inspired by the long running Down Your Way, the final movement starts with a sprightly fugue in the woodwind followed by a contrasting stately brass theme. The music passes through different moods from grand to pastoral, contemplative to light-hearted and is a perfect showcase for the different sounds of the wind orchestra. The radio voice announces the end of broadcasting for the day, and a final cadence brings the piece to a close.
INTERVAL
Holst, arr. Denis Wright: A Moorside Suite
1. Scherzo
2. Nocturne
3. March
Gustav Holst is the most familiar composer on this afternoon’s programme, having become particularly famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. He was an important figure in British music with a distinctive style influenced by composers such as Wagner, Richard Strauss and Ravel, and in turn influencing later composers including Tippett and Britten. He was part of the English folk song revival of the early 20th Century, and his folk music interest is evident in many of his works. Written just six years before Holst’s death, A Moorside Suite is considered a masterpiece, combining his distinctive compositional voice with his folk music influences.
A Moorside Suite was originally composed for brass band and commissioned for the final of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain in 1928. Having written many pieces for military band previously, this was Holst’s first and only work for brass band. He had always intended there to be a wind band version and had started work on one himself. This arrangement was made by the music scholar Denis Wright in the early 1930s but wasn’t published until fifty years later.
The Suite opens with a lively Scherzo with suggestions of a village folk dance and a contrasting second theme. A plaintive melody in the oboe sets a thoughtful mood for the peaceful Nocturne, later repeated on the trumpet before a stately chorale theme is introduced, moving in considered steps. The initial tune and chorale develop before reaching a powerful climax. A grand triumphant March completes this musical picture of the moors, contrasting an emphatic melody, a striking fanfare and a light-hearted tune, while the trio section looks back at the chorale of the second movement.
Frank Ticheli: Shenandoah
Frank Ticheli is an American composer of works for orchestra, chorus, and concert band / wind orchestra. This piece is an arrangement of a popular traditional American folk song from the 19th century set in Virginia where the Shenandoah River flows. There have been many different versions of the melody and text as the song has been handed down through the generations, the most popular of which tells the story of an early settler’s love for a Native American woman.
Ticheli said of the work; “In my setting of Shenandoah I was inspired by the freedom and beauty of the folk melody and by the natural images evoked by the words, especially the image of a river. I was less concerned with the sound of a rolling river than with its life-affirming energy — its timelessness. Sometimes the accompaniment flows quietly under the melody; other times it breathes alongside it. The work’s mood ranges from quiet reflection, through growing optimism, to profound exaltation.”
Keiron Anderson: Las Encantadas
This is the second piece in this afternoon’s programme by our Musical Director Keiron Anderson. In Keiron’s words: “Las Encantadas depicts the discovery of the Galapagos Islands, exploring how the first people to arrive there might have reacted to such beauty and such strange newly discovered creatures.”
Las Encantadas, meaning The Enchanted Isles, was the name given to the Galapagos Islands by their first explorers, either early Spanish explorers or Tomas de Berlanga, who discovered the islands by accident, his ship having been blown off course. The Enchanted Isles was a reference to the mysterious properties of the islands, as the local sea mists swirled around them, making them disappear and reappear as if by magic.
Listening to the music you can imagine the impact of the islands on the first visitors travelling by boat, approaching the islands and spotting the unfamiliar landscape and unique wildlife like huge spiny lizards and strange seabirds with sky blue feet. We are taken on a musical journey from one island to another, discovering the wonders of nature and leaving us, like the early sailors, full of wonder and awe.
Fun fact: Las Encantadas is also the title of a set of ten short stories by the American writer Herman Melville, famous as the author of Moby Dick.
Frank Ticheli: Lux Perpetua
Frank Ticheli is particularly well known for his distinctive concert band compositions, several of which have become established pieces in the repertoire. He has won many awards and prizes for his compositions, and Lux Perpetua was no exception. Composed in 2020, the piece won the National Band Association / William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest the following year.
Lux Perpetua was written in memory of two student clarinettists, Laura Onwudinanti and Jack Stewart, both members of the Baylor University Wind Ensemble, who tragically lost their lives together in a road accident. The piece reflects their different personalities, Jack introspective and thoughtful, and Laura more outgoing and spontaneous.
The Latin title Lux Perpetua is taken from the Lux Aeterna movement of the Requiem Mass and means ‘perpetual light’ in the phrase ‘et lux perpetua luceat eis’ or ‘let perpetual light shine upon them’. Ticheli explains that he sees this light as both protecting and illuminating, and that two kinds of light illuminate the piece, one soft and meditative and the other sparkling and effervescent.
The music begins gently and reflectively with a calm three note motif in the clarinets, before building in overlapping waves. A longer melody emerges, full of longing and emotion, underpinned by shifting harmonies before growing stronger and more emphatic. A second theme appears, this one more urgent and exuberant, developing into an epic melody and then a moving climax. The music calms gradually and the piece fades away to a sung chord, suggesting timelessness and eternity.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: KEIRON ANDERSON
Keiron was born in Aberdeen and studied trumpet and keyboard at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he started both a light orchestra and big band. His career has multiple strands: musical director, composer, performer, teacher.
Keiron currently directs Yorkshire Wind Orchestra (1994 – ) which he has brought to its present level of excellence, Nottingham Symphonic Winds (2006 – ) with whom he has produced many excellent concerts and recordings, and Phoenix Concert Band (2003 – ) which he has developed into a high-quality community wind band. He has worked with many other groups including Harlequin Brass, Leeds Conservatoire Wind Orchestra, Nottingham Symphony Orchestra, the National Saxophone Choir of Great Britain and numerous chamber ensembles throughout the UK and Europe as part of a diverse and rich schedule of conducting. Keiron approaches each group differently according to its particular character, capabilities, ambition and rehearsal schedule!
Keiron is a prolific composer producing unique and exciting new music across an eclectic mix of styles. Some of these works are written specifically for the groups he directs or as commissions for other ensembles. Others are intended to be enjoyed on Soundcloud.
Keiron has worked extensively as a freelance performer from performing in a chamber orchestra in Bridlington sightreading 12 concerts a week, to work with the Scottish Ballet Orchestra, London Festival Ballet, Welsh Opera, Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Northern Radio Orchestra. Keiron also established the Keiron Anderson Orchestra and completed several years working on cruise ships followed by a period in Spain before returning to the UK and performing all over the country with artists such as Cannon and Ball, Ronnie Corbett, Bob Monkhouse, Little and Large, Frankie Vaughan and many more.
Keiron’s teaching experience includes 10 years as a peripatetic teacher of brass and composition, three years as Head of the Ilkley Music Centre and 18 years as Head of Music, then Head of Creative Arts at Ilkley Grammar School.
YORKSHIRE WIND ORCHESTRA
The Yorkshire Wind Orchestra is an amateur group of around 40 musicians from across Yorkshire who enjoy playing a wide range of music written or arranged for woodwind, brass and percussion (and double bass!). Members of the orchestra take pride in performing to a high standard and in coming together to communicate our music to an audience. The orchestra was formed in 1996 and has gone from strength to strength, giving regular performances across the Yorkshire region from Sheffield to Hull.
Our repertoire includes works written specifically for wind orchestra by composers such as Malcolm Arnold, Martin Ellerby, Adam Gorb, Percy Grainger, Nigel Hess, Gustav Holst, Joseph Horovitz, Frank Ticheli, Eric Whitacre and Guy Woolfenden as well as by our Musical Director, Keiron Anderson. We also play music arranged for wind orchestra. Recent concerts have included programmes of film music, well-known light classical music and staples of the Last Night of the Proms. The orchestra also undertook a groundbreaking collaboration with a Sheffield based folk group to present a programme of original folk music and arrangements of folk tunes for wind orchestra by composers such as Grainger and Vaughan Williams.
Yorkshire Wind Orchestra is a registered charity and, as well as promoting the work of contemporary composers with a particular focus on those from the UK, is committed to developing young wind and percussion players in the Yorkshire region. The orchestra runs playdays for local music services to give their young students the opportunity to experience playing in a wind orchestra and share the stage with the ensemble in a final joint concert. Its popular flute days provide a stimulating day of ensemble playing for people of all ages.
Please see our website at https://www.yorkshirewinds.co.uk/ for details of upcoming concerts and playdays.
THIS AFTERNOON'S PLAYERS
Clarinets
Phil Broadbent
Ollie Gibbon
Caroline Hamilton
Morgan Hollis
Elizabeth Kelly
Louise Nash
Lucy Nelson
Becci Thompson
Tristan Watson
Lindsay Blank (E-flat)
Marc Dunleavy (alto)
Kathryn Booth (bass)
Paul Hannon (bass)
Flutes
Emma Cordell (piccolo)
Jen Fraser
Hannah Hardcastle
Jane Henshaw
Nicola McDonnell
Elizabeth Palmer (piccolo)
Oboes
Freya Bailes
Sally Johnson
Alison Nairn
Bassoons
Nicky Rowbottom
Jacob Redhead
Saxophones
Andy Ainge
Molly Austen
Jane Clayton
Alison Owen-Morley
Horns
Paul Kampen
Yuna Murayama
Mick Nagle
Mike Williamson
Trumpets
Claire Dawes
Andrew Forster-Fake
Ruth Hays
Sammy Pearson
Brian Winter
Trombones
Dave Joyce
Ela Bireka
Jay Porter (bass)
Euphonium
Richard Mellor
Tuba
Camilla Priede
Percussion
Lizzy Crawford
Matthew McKirgan
Ben Sharpe
