The Wallace Collection
Stockbridge Parish Church - 31/03/23
Big Brass night in Stockbridge
Edinburgh cellist Clea Friend is creating a really exciting music hub in Stockbridge, with the support of sponsors Amati Global Investors, using the splendid setting of Stockbridge Parish Church as its base. Her latest concert presented John Wallace’s brass ensemble, the Wallace Collection, in a concert which spanned the musical world from 17th century Venice to 20th century New York, from sacred church music to brass band music through to jazz. Not only was it a great concert but Clea had laid on wine and sandwiches, courtesy of philanthropist Vincent Meyer. Clea clearly has learned much from the course in Community Music that she did several years ago with Nigel Osborne at Edinburgh University, and fittingly Nigel was present tonight along with a very healthy audience to enjoy the concert.
John Wallace was born into a brass band family in Fife and became a very distinguished trumpet player with the London Symphony Orchestra and later principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow which is among the top music schools in the world. The brass band made up of amateur musicians is a very important part of the tradition of Scottish music and has encouraged a number of their members to become full time musicians either in classical, jazz or pop music. These bands were often sponsored by industry or local authorities and it was good to see one of the younger members of the Wallace Collection Gregor Koziel who played the petit bugle came from this background. I spoke to John Wallace about another musician who came from this tradition, an old friend of mine who died last year, Andrew Woodburn who began life working in the lace mills of the Irvine Valley and playing in the Newmilns Brass Band. After an accident in the mill where he lost an eye the mill owner paid for him to go to Glasgow to the then Royal Academy of Music. Andrew ended up as a principal horn player with the Royal Philharmonic next to the great Dennis Brain and also at the Liverpool Philharmonic. It was exciting to see a young trombone player Simone Hutchison who was a product of ‘The Big Noise’ at Raploch, Stirling. This project is based on the experience of ‘El Sistema’ in Venezuela which encourages young people from poor backgrounds to take up music and helps to improve their lives. I visited Raploch early on in the project and it was a delight to see the young children coming out of primary school and picking up their instruments.
The other members of the Wallace Collection are very experienced musicians: John Miller on cornet, Fergus Kerr tenor sax, Paul Stone trombone and Anthony George on an exotic instrument an opchicleide, a kind of saxophone! As well as playing the instruments each musician introduced them and explained their place in the orchestra. Sandy Coffin a musician from New York talked about the music in the programme and its background, which helped our musical, social and historical understanding of the programme.
The programme began with 18th century music from Venice by Gabrieli and moved on through works by Mozart and Haydn, arranged for brass, on to 19th century French music, and then 20th century brass band music by Rimmer, among others. It finished with jazz music from James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hellfighters, a black armed forces orchestra (who fought for France in World War 1as they were disqualified from fighting for the USA on grounds of colour!) and ended with the ‘St Louis Blues’, that great jazz standard by W C Handy. The concert was a delight in every way and showed the variety and melody of the brass instruments and taught us much about the history of their use in our musical culture. Education, entertainment, wine, sandwiches and discussion - what a great way to spend a Friday night! On to the next Clea!
