‘To the Stars’ Galactic Performance

Eynsford Concert Band sparkled on Sunday 8th May as they took Dartford to another galaxy.

The interplanetary exploration, at The Mick Jagger Centre, began shrouded in darkness to the audience’s delight as atmospheric cinematic mist rose from beneath the band.

In the first half, the mystery unfolded with an explanatory voice over, preparing the audience for their impending journey, immediately followed by a spectacular fanfare from ‘2001 a Space Odyssey’ (Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra) to set the scene, in no uncertain terms, majestically heralding the beginning of this epic planetary encounter.

The band then proceeded, alongside a concoction of informative text and stunning visual effects, to explore the planets of Mars and Jupiter through the exhilarating and dramatic music of Holst.

To draw the multimedia, intergalactic endeavour to a close, the band then performed the evocative and expressive Gagarin, composed by Nigel Clark, our new Honorary Patron.  This piece, written to celebrate the first manned space flight by the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on 12th April 1961, charts this most momentous of historical achievements through three sequential movements, Here We Go, Orbit and Homecoming, providing an extremely moving tribute to human accomplishment.

Alex Carter sings 'Fly me to the Moon'

The second half of the concert continued in a similar vein, with a variety of musical arrangements based on the theme of stars and space.  The guest star for the evening was London based singer Alex Carter, who studied at the Royal College of Music with Noelle Barker.  She delighted the audience with her elegant performances of Fly me to the Moon and When You Wish upon a Star, accompanied by members of the band, with John Hutchins on Piano.

Subsequent performances of Starlight Express, Apollo 13, Star Trek and ET all contributed to making it a magical evening, succeeding in transporting the audience to another world.

We were very fortunate to have Nigel in the audience and priviledged that he documented his review our concert for his own website …as well as for the photo’s he took during the performance: