Our Kind Of Music – Oxenhope Community Centre.

ANOTHER concert by the Oxnop Singers filled the hall last Sunday, augmented by a brass band, this time the Hebden Bridge Junior Band.

The concert was in aid of the accident and emergency unit at Airedale Hospital.

A moving piece associated with Westlife opened the choir’s miscellaneous programme, with enthusiastic tenors to the fore.

Better known was the brilliant opener to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, a sparkling, catchy piece which made clear the composer’s particular genius.

Blue Moon which followed was by another American genius, Richard Rodgers, but the performance didn’t quite match it on this occasion.

It was now the turn of the band with three pieces, one of which, the Russian celebrity Kalinka, was wonderfully effective.

More well-known names associated with the choir’s second slot was Sting and Status Quo. Fields Of Gold came over well before being rivalled by a more varied piece, And It’s Better Now, with a two-guitar compliment.

A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square was a simple classic, better perhaps a solo as it was written.-Before the interval three more items from the band included a horn trumpet solo by one of the senior players.

In the second half were songs like I Dreamed A Dream and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

The concert was concluded by the famous duet from Chess – I Know Him So Well – and a medley arrangement of items from Oklahoma!, always a pleasure, even if we had the sopranos struggling a little for their final notes.

John Pettitt