Nearly 70 people attended the Brantford Community Symphony Orchestra’s winter concert at the Fairview Community Centre on Sunday, January 26, 2025.
Margaret McSavage, the event’s master of ceremonies, kicked off the event by introducing the community-based orchestra and its conductor to those in attendance, and prepared them for the diverse and upbeat afternoon set.
“If you have attended any of the orchestra’s previous performances, you will know that it was formed in 2012 by the late Karl Langton and since its inception, the orchestra has been under the direction of Deb McLoughlin,” said McSavage. “Deb is an accomplished musician, former educator and teaches with the Brantford School of Instrumental Music.”
After the introductions, the sound of the robust orchestra filled the church as the concert officially got under way with the playing of “O Canada.”
Throughout the one hour performance, the orchestra played several compositions, including Elliott del Borgo’s “Variants on Shaker Hymn,” Franz Josef Haydn’s “Piano Concerto in D,” Robert Washburn’s “Scottish Fantasy,” Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero,” Ted Ricketts arrangement of John Williams’ soundtrack highlights, which included music from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Artificial Intelligence and the Patriot, and Victor Lopez’ arrangement “Tower of Power Greatest Hits” which included “What’s Hip?” “You’re Still a Young Man,” and “ Down to the Nightclub.”
Given that it was the orchestra’s first concert of the year, McLoughlin said it was nice to be back again.
“We actually did our last concert in November so it hasn’t been too long, but it felt really great to be back,” she said.”
When asked if there were any words to describe the concert, McLoughlin said it was both “satisfying and “challenging.”
“I would say that today was satisfying in many ways because we’ve been working on this program since September and while the group here have played some of the pieces before, a couple of the pieces were brand new for us. ‘Tower of Power’ was a challenge because it’s a type of music that an orchestra doesn’t usually play but it was so much fun to do,” she said. “‘Bolero’ was also a particularly fun piece because it’s so challenging and it’s hard to do what is required in it; you begin with all the individual instruments by themselves then you put them together in different combinations, and then you put them together in even bigger combinations before you bring in the whole group and its just such a great piece. By the end. there are six bars of the trombones laughing their heads off because it’s a ‘hey, we’re finally at the end’ kind of thing, you know? Overall, I was just very happy the way it all came together.”
Afterwards, several guests took the opportunity to chat about how overall impressed they were with the performance.
“I really enjoyed the variety of the music; between the funk music, ‘Bolero,’ and the Scottish piece, it was really eclectic and upbeat,” said Brantford resident, Janet Crook. “Everything just made you kind of tap your toes as it went along and it was nice. It’s so hard to choose, but I particularly enjoyed ‘Bolero’ because I know it’s a hard piece to play and I really enjoyed ‘Variants on Shaker Hymn”’ and the Tower of Power number was just so different too. It was really just a nice variety of music and I’m looking forward to their next concert.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
