Rochdale Music Society Concert

An almost capacity audience of enthusiasts gathered in the Middleton Arena on Saturday 6 November for a spicy mixture of Big Band music and Jazz played by members of Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester, Big Bands One and Two. The concert had been organised by Rochdale Music Society in co-operation with Link4Life, Rochdale.

Internationally acclaimed saxophonist Jean Toussaint added his personal touch of what has been called ‘liquid crystal’ sound to several of the numbers. But the accolades on this spectacular occasion of musical accomplishment must go the youngsters - each and every one of them. Under their discreetly energetic Conductor, David Iles, they showed themselves equal to the best in a long and spectacular tradition of music-making designed to thrill.

In a challenging programme that moved seemingly effortlessly through classic examples of music demanding the highest degree of concentration and collaboration between players these young musicians demonstrated, as Toussaint himself said in thanking them for their collaboration with him, that Jazz is still very much alive today and will be in the future. There could be no doubt that every instrumentalist was not only already accomplished technically at an early age, but also filled with the artistic sense that goes along with technical proficiency to produce an experience that has to be called a ‘real performance’. Each work played was addressed with such skill and understanding as left the audience enthralled by the sense of musical ambition and accomplishment.

Let’s hope this will have been only the first of many such occasions in the calendar of Rochdale Music Society , whose next concert is scheduled to take place on February 5th in the Heywood Civic Centre, when the pianist Alexandra Dariescu will be playing Music by Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy.