National Band given ovation

Press, 7 August 1978, Page 6

National Band given ovation

From

JOHN ROSS

in London

The waterside workers, schoolteachers, builders, bankers, students, clerks, butcher, jeweller, haematologist bank manager and former private detective, who help make up the National Band of New Zealand, received a standing ovation from an enthralled audience of more than 2000 in London on Saturday evening, From the doyen of brass band conductors, Harry Mortimer, the band received the supreme accolade — “New Zealand has sent some good bands to London, but 1 think this one is probably the best,” he said after the concert.

“It is the most coherent band I have conducted — there seems to be a great understanding there.”

The 52-member band, with the 12-member Aotearoa Maori Concert Party, left New Zealand in early July at the start of a three-month concert tour *of Europe, London, Canada and the United States. Not until near' the end of

the night’s splendid and varied programme at the Westminster Central Hall did the band give the nearcapacity audience what they obviously wanted — some of the madcap frolics which have made it famous.

The Johnny Heyken’s serenade, played on a gramophone in the Dorcester, at a teashop in Japan, in a German beergarden, and in a scout. Gang Show in Wellington, received tumultous applause, encouraging the conductor. Mervyn J. Waters, to round off the evening with a swinging “Salute to Elvis.” Harry Mortimer conducted Rimmer’s tricky arrangement of Litzt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, No. 2 which provided some problems in tempo. Today the band and the Aotearoa party will fly to Toronto to begin their hectic seven-week tour of Canada and the United States.

In the words of Harry Mortimer: “By the time they get back to New Zealand they will be playing almost to perfection.”