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SKELMANTHORPE'S annual celebrity concert
featuring Hayley Westenra - star of the middle-of-the-road circuit with mega
album sales to her 18 year-old name - delighted its sold-out audience.
The Band were in the safe and experienced hands of
guest conductor Stan Lippeat, a former flugel player with Grimethorpe Colliery,
and their hugely entertaining guest compere from over Oldham way was former Brighouse
and Rastrick man Gilbert Symes.
They are bright-toned but underpinned by beefy trombones
and basses, and they rattled through several styles ranging from Richard Strauss'
Fest Musik der Stadt Wien to swing numbers.
Their most stylistically varied number was the Nightmare
and Victory from Cry of the Celts that included the Shaker hymn, a couple of
reels and a march tune with a flavour of the 19th century military about it -
strange how `Celtishness' is spuriously claimed these days for so much middle-of-the-road
and film music!
Hayley Westenra - tall, willowy and
winning - delivered a mix of Maori and transatlantic folky material plus Handel's
Lascia Ch'io Pianga and Orff's In Tutina.
Some numbers were accompanied by the Band and some
by pre-recorded backing.
Although heavily miked, her concert-hall tone is less
juicy than that conjured up by her CD engineers. She clips and swallows many
shorter notes and her upper register lacks firm support.
When her voice settles in a few years time - if she
is still singing then - she may well turn out to be a mezzo and not a soprano
at all.
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