MICHAEL DRAKE St Martin's Church, Houghton

MICHAEL DRAKE

> St Martin's Church, Houghton

The venue for this tea concert is reputedly one of Norfolk's best-kept secrets (and well worth the discovery), as may be the fact that the Yorke Trust offers a platform for hundreds of young musicians in a local, unpressurised environment.

This year's concert series continued with real heavy metal in the shape of a couple of tubas and a range of percussion with as wide a musical variety as one could imagine, starting with Charlie Parker jazz.

The group's version of Bach's Gigue for tubas and marimbas was their way of making the brass instrument cool enough to encourage youngsters to play it. The trio are Royal College of Music students with a calling to education outreach, keeping arrange-ments short to attract young listeners.

None of the select (though not so young) took up the invitation to dance to Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz or the Black and White Rag.

The (Hovis) Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony was another classical piece the group use in schools' programmes. They unlocked secrets of a Wonderful World (of music) courtesy of Louis Armstrong.

This was an interesting and entertaining hour.

t The next series event features a string trio on Sunday August 28.