On Sunday 20th May 2018, Saints were proud to join together with the Reading Spring Gardens Band for the first ‘Reading Festival of Brass’ event at Christ Church in Woodley. The band had been working hard in preparation for the annual SCABA Entertainment contest in Crawley, but unfortunately this was cancelled at fairly short notice. Eager not to waste the time spent preparing our American-based entertainment programme, we were delighted to get the opportunity to perform with Spring Gardens, who found themselves in exactly the same situation as ourselves. The event also offered the opportunity to raise some funds for the Christian disability charity ‘CBM’.

After Spring Gardens entertained the crowd with their programme, Saints opened our contribution with Vangelis’ ‘Conquest of Paradise’, which saw the band enter section by section during the piece until the full band was united together onstage. Karl King’s march ‘The Trombone King’ followed, with contrast provided thereafter with Alan Fernie’s arrangement of ‘Deep River’ (the second movement of his ‘Southern Gospel Suite’). The band’s solo item featured Damon Emes on flugel performing ‘Under the Boardwalk’, as arranged by Philip Harper for the Cory Band’s ‘Brass in Concert’ programme 2017. The finale to our programme featured a number of well known American pieces contained within Dan Price’s ‘An American Tale’.

Following the conclusion of our programme, Saints and Spring Gardens joined forces for the conclusion of the concert, performing the march ‘Imperial Echos’, the Bandsman’s Hymn ‘Deep Harmony’ and the National Anthem.

The event was a great success and raised just under £200 for a good charitable cause. We look forward to joining together with Spring Gardens again in the future.