Music at St Mary's

Click here to download a booking form to hire St Mary's for a concert.

 

Programme

Matthew Locke  Music for his Majesty’s Sackbuts and Cornetts (1661)

Giles Farnaby (arr Howarth)  Fancies, Toyes ands Dreames

Anon  BaenkelSaenger Lieder

JS Bach (arr Corley)  Minuet

Clive Jenkins  In Roseland (trombone feature)

Scott Joplin (arr Iveson)  Gladiolus Rag

Lennon/Mcartney  Yesterday

Joseph Horowitz  Soft Shoe Shuffle

Alan Harniess  Three Episodes for Brass Quintet

~ INTERVAL ~

John Hammonds  Fanfare in D

Handy (arr Wasson)  St Louis Blues

Edvard Grieg  Last Spring

Andrew Wilson  Sword and Tabard (organ solo)

Andrew Wilson  Tropical Fruits

 

ABBEY BRASS

Abbey Brass was formed in 1983 by trombonists John Powell (of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) and James Fulkerson (the eminent American composer and soloist). Then, as now, it combined players based in the West Country with others based in London and other musical “hubs” (the original line-up usually included performers from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Ballet Orchestra) in a variety of ensemble sizes and instrumentations, to perform concerts and lecture recitals, at weddings and in conjunction with choral societies, the length and breadth of Great Britain and in France.

As a celebration of its first quarter century, Abbey Brass toured Italy as a dectet of American, British, Danish and Swedish players and academics. Its repertoire ranged from the Renaissance to both “art” and “light” music of the present day, bringing together a vast range of performance experience from all points of the compass, from the Northern Sinfonia via the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden to Teatro Massimo di Palermo, and from Dallas Symphony Orchestra to Malmo Opera House.

More recently, Abbey Brass later performed at the Vigonza Festival, in Veneto, NE Italy, in quintet format. n 2015, Abbey Brass commissioned Paul Drayton’s Antique Suite for brass dectet, which it premiered on May 16th in Plymouth and then repeated on September 25th 2016 in Penzance. This has proved a very valuable addition to the repertoire.

On 25th November 2016 Abbey Brass accompanied Exeter Festival Chorus in From Darkness to Light. Voices on War and Reconciliation, a programme including works by Jonathan Willcox, Henry Purcell and John Rutter.

In February 2017 Abbey Brass trumpeters Paul Thomas (Cornwall) and Jason Camilleri (Gozo) performed Baroque Angels, a series of concerts with organist Nigel Wicken in Fowey, Falmouth and Penzance. These featured the first performances of  Three Places in Old, a work dedicated to Paul Thomas and written by Paul Drayton; alongside works by Petronio Franceschini, Vincent Lubeck, Oscar Boehme, John Morrisey, GF Handel, Joseph Haydn and Francesco Manfredini.

On Good Friday 2017, Abbey Brass Quintet premiered the musical accompaniment by Andrew Wilson to The Tavistock Passion, in the open air in Tavistock.                                                                             

On 6th May 2017, Abbey Brass premiered A Ceremony of Psalms (for brass ensemble, choir and organ by Paul Drayton, in St John’s Methodist Church, St Austell. This is a homage to Stravinsky and Britten and was performed alongside Rutter’s ever popular “Gloria”.                                                            

 

Abbey Brass would be happy to provide you with any combination of players, from a single trumpet player with an organist, via the ever popular quintet format to the rich, symphonic sound of the dectet and beyond.

ANDREW M. WILSON B. Mus., hon.FNCM, FGMS, PGCE, MISM

 

Andrew M. Wilson was born in 1960 in Bedfordshire. He held a Junior Exhibition to Trinity College of Music, London, before proceeding to study Music at the Royal Holloway College of London University, where his teachers included Brian Dennis for composition and Martin Neary for organ.

 

He taught music at a series of distinguished schools and for 22 years was Director of Music at Kelly College, Tavistock, where he also conducted of the Kelly Choral Society, and the Plymouth-based South West Chamber Choir. In 2015 he became the Director of Studies of the National College of Music, London. He is a very busy composer and recently his music has been performed all over the world; he has had a number of commercial recordings released of his orchestral, chamber and keyboard music which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. His children’s opera “The Green Children” was produced to great acclaim at the Woolpit Festival. He has won numerous awards for his compositions: most recently the New York Project Trio Competition 2017, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir’s “Celebrating Dorset Competition” 2016, the International Small Choirs Competition 2015 and the “Harvest of the Sea” City of London Prize 2015. He has been the organist of several important churches, currently at Okehampton Parish Church and he is the Musical Director of the Okehampton Choral Society.

 

2017 has already seen premieres of the concert overture “Hartland Point” commissioned for the North Devon Sinfonia; choral and brass incidental music for the Tavistock Passion Play and “Conversation Pieces” for Piano Quintet by the Dante String Quartet with renowned pianist Mark Bebbington. Andrew has strong links to Cornish Music Making: the Truro Youth Strings played “Omfra’s Laugh” in the Royal Albert Hall, the Launceston Choral Society sang “Singing Game” for the Causley Centenary and the Callington Singers have commissioned “The Sage Bush Carol”.