Bay Cities’ Symphonic: New concert to take listeners on a musical journey inspired by famous landscapes

Bay Cities Symphonic co-conductor James Bevin says players have really been enjoying the current repertoire, which features the band's new train whistle.

Bay Cities’ Symphonic is ready to take listeners on a transcontinental train ride of a musical adventure with its next concert, from a Scottish highland to a windswept Alaskan coast.

On Sunday, September 8, the Hastings Music Society will host its annual musical showcase at St Matthew’s Church in Hastings, featuring the Bay Cities’ Symphonic Band.

This year’s programme expands on the group’s successful concerts last year and is inspired by Robert Buckley’s symphony Portraits of the North.

Featuring the symphony’s third movement Iditarod, the audience can look forward to an exhilarating musical dog sled race through the jagged mountain ranges, dense forests and windswept coastlines of Alaska.

The band will also be performing two of their more complex works from the recent New Zealand Concert Band Festival in Hamilton, including the white-water rafting adventures of Rogue River by Ralph Ford and the galactic Orbital by Adrian Sims.

Alongside the feature pieces, audiences can also look forward to the Scottish grand ballad Perthshire Majesty by Samuel Hazo and the eerie sub-zero wilderness of Tundra by William Owens.

They can also expect traditional classics like Shostakovich’s Folk Dances, the toe-tapping Irish Washerwoman and the legendary train journey of the Wabash Cannonball, in which the band gets to show off their new whistle.

“Our players have really been enjoying the current repertoire,” co-conductor James Bevin said.

“We’ve extended the band musically with some demanding works over the past few months, and I’m proud to say that they’ve risen to the challenge and are sounding great”.

Tickets are $5 at the door and free for children and Hastings Music Society members.

People can also keep up to date with Bay Cities’ Symphonic Band’s upcoming events by following them on Facebook or checking out their website at www.baycities.band.

Bay Cities’ Symphonic Band, together with the Hastings Music Society, showcased their newly purchased vibraphone for a special concert showcasing music about magical beasts last year.

With storytelling narrated by well-known local Ian Hunt, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them included dancing garden gnomes, marching trolls, mythical flying piasas, dragons, Bigfoot, the last of the unicorns and more.