Christmas as usual has been a busy time of the year for the band. We have played three times at Marks and Spencer raising money for charity, played the carols for a carol service at St. Albans Church, Swaythling, performed for the Masonic Lodge in Lexby Road, Totton and had a great evening on Sunday 11th December at our annual Christmas concert held at The Point, Eastleigh.
The latter event was a particular highlight for the band and was well appreciated by the audience. The first half consisted of music from the band’s standard repetoire including the euphonium solo “The Holy Well”, a couple of solos from Les Miserables, a Mack and Mable selection, Ravel’s Bolero and others. This was interspersed with music from the men’s barbershop chorus, Ocean Harmony, singing traditional American numbers “Home on the Range”, “Georgia on my Mind”, “Under the Boardwalk” and “Take me Home Country Roads”. For the second half the band concentrated more on Christmas tunes including Leroy Anderson numbers “Sleigh Ride” and “Christmas Festival”, Howard Blake’s “The Snowman”, Jona Lewie’s “Stop the Cavalry” and several carols to which the audience were able to join in. Ocean Harmony performed another set of songs including “White Christmas”, “Hello Mary Lou” and the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty Four”. The audience had to endure a horrible evening of weather to get to the concert but went home feeling that the effort had been worth it.
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