A COLD Sunday afternoon in January saw the Orchestra of the Light Music Society serve up a banquet of musical delights to a packed audience at Christ Church, Skipton, writes Sarah Glossop.

This highly entertaining programme of light music follows on from the society's successful sell-out inaugural concert in August last year. Guided by the consummate skill of conductor Alex Webb, this talented group of hand-picked musicians from all over the northwest held the audience in the palm of its hand from the opening fanfare to the final flourish.

As the vibrant brass chords of Julius Fučik’s Florentiner March rang out to the rafters to begin the programme in style, it was clear that the audience was in for a real treat.

The full orchestral sound heard in the opening piece and throughout the concert belied the relatively small size of the 20-strong ensemble, giving the impression of a much larger number of players.

The varied programme showcased the versatility of the orchestra, requiring several different styles of playing, all of which were performed with equal aplomb by the players, and featuring many well-known light music composers such as Eric Coates, Ernest Tomlinson and Ronald Binge.

Soprano soloist April Grime gave confident, characterful performances of Rusalka’s Song to the Moon by Dvorak, Laughing Song from Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Lehar’s Vilja Song from Merry Widow, made all the more entertaining by her captivating engagement with the audience.

Leader Matthew Chadbond excelled in his two solos, Reverie by Angela Morley and Czardas by Vittorio Monti, two contrasting pieces requiring both a beauty of tone and exceptional technical prowess, both of which Matthew demonstrated with ease.

Oboist Heather Cossins delighted the audience with an exquisite rendition of Binge’s The Water Mill, and Albert Ketèlbey’s The Clock and the Dresden Figures featured a sparkling piano solo from Brian Heaton.

There were several surprises for the audience. Coronation Scot by Vivian Ellis was played whilst original Pathé news footage of the actual Coronation Scot train in service in the 1930s was projected onto a screen, accompanied by smoke effects and train whistle!

There was also a display of ballroom dancing as Callum Edwards and Deanna Gore from the Andrea Wortley School of Dance proceeded to waltz around the church to Robert Farnon’s beautiful Westminster Waltz, and Leroy Anderson’s novelty Sandpaper Ballet featured some comical antics with sweeping brushes between the conductor and a flat-capped ‘gatecrasher’.

The enthusiastic applause and standing ovation received at the end of this highly entertaining concert, as the final chords of a showstopping selection from The Sound of Music died away, was greatly deserved and was a suitably rousing end to two hours of wonderful escapism!