CedarBridge Academy February 4-5 *** Friday night's festival concert was as satisfying as a concert gets. There was the music itself, and just as entertaining the comments of musical director James Watson who kept the audience informed and amused. What is more you didn't have to be a brass band aficionado to enjoy the evening although the band's name Black Dyke, Watson told us, almost caused their Carnegie Hall concert to be cancelled for its unintentional political incorrectness, as perceived by certain New Yorkers.

Here on Friday evening they played a superb concert of transcriptions from the classics, and works especially written for brass band. Some have themselves become classics of this special repetoire.

They began with a test piece, a march not meant for the road, "Night Templar''.

Their excellence was evident before the introduction was through; crisp attack and a transparency of balance that allowed each section to be heard. There followed Eric Ball's "Resergam''.

Watson had modestly promised to give the lie to the claim that the march was brass bands' main contribution to English culture. Ball's composition, with its religious programme made the point.

A very intensely felt and challenging composition, it was played with sensitivity and an appropriate sense of drama. Virtuosity seems commonplace in this band. And just as well because this was technically, and aesthetically a demanding piece.

The same could be said of Gareth Wood's Concerto for Trombone, flawlessly executed with deceptive ease by solist Christopher Thomas. There was a good deal of stylistic and rhythmic variation in this piece, the second movement of which employed a 7/4 rhythm which Director Watson jokingly referred to as "a samba with a limp''. The percussionists contributed in this as in all the pieces in outstanding fashion.

Percy Fletcher was a legend in the world of brass banding doing much to lift it above class-biased ridicule.

His "Epic Symphony'', written in relative ignorance of the medium, challenged bandsmen and began a tradition of uncompromising composition. The way bandsmen responded to these challenges is one of the heroic stories of British working class musicians.

That there is an extremely high technical standard of playing is evident not only from the playing itself, but also from the long list of bandsmen who have moved into the symphonic realm with distinction.

Composers for brass band meet the challenge of the similarity of timbre in a variety of ingenious ways, using different voicings, harmonies, and a selection of mutes. In the transcription of Holst's "From the Planets'' I felt the limits of brass were exposed despite some phenomenal playing by the entire ensemble, particularly by the cornet section led admirably by Matthew Baker.

I regret that I did not get the name of the young woman on soprano who did such outstanding work all throughout the concert. The band sounded symphonic in several instances.

They swung admirably in "Broadway Brass'' E flat horn and Soprano using vibrato to good effect imitating the sound of woodwinds. Perfectly executed rippling runs by the euphoniums were a delight in this, as in several other pieces.

Purists might have been aghast at this departure into non-traditional repetoire, as Watson surmised, but the audience responded positively; which they also did to the dramatic march, Via Appia, by Respigi. The director gave an interesting sketch of the scene that the composer intended to portray. The cornets achieved a bright trumpet like sound in this work as well as in several others. Again the soprano cornettist was outstanding. Well done.

The audience gave such an ovation that the genial conductor obliged with the first of two encores. They evidently have this happen to them quite often, and were very well prepared. First they offered "Cartoon Music'' in which one percussionist produced a Looney Toon mouse sound, which got the appropriate response from the "cool cats'' in the trombone section. They clowned amusingly with comedic use of their muted glissandos.

The band were called back and played the humorous "Lucerne Song'' and did a bit more hamming in which, section by section, the band left the stage until only one tuba player was left. He seized his moment to shine and was well into the second page of his score before his colleagues crept back unnoticed by him to bring this entertainment to an uproarious climax.

A happy audience it was that stood up and applauded as they left. I got some good advice from the lady sitting in front of me as to the quality of the concert. I happily concurred.

The one regret I had was that my dear friend and brass band connoisseur, salvationist, Arthur Phillip, was not bodily present. He passed away just two months ago.I can not imagine that he would otherwise have missed this concert.

I have no doubt that he was there in spirit.

I dedicate this review to you, Arthur.

Ron Lightbourne THEATRE THR