MICHAEL DRAKE Wymondham College

MICHAEL DRAKE

> Wymondham College

Twenty-one years ago, Wymondham Community Orchestra was formed to give local musicians the chance to play together and it soon became a full symphony orchestra.

Last evening, in a packed sports hall, a year's planning came to fruition when the Wymondham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Parnell, was joined by young members of the college and high-school orchestras and choir in a popular and wide-ranging programme.

The WSO started in stirring fashion with Sibelius' patriotic Finlandia. The most effective passages were those involving woodwind, followed by a trio of musical character perambu-lations from Saint-Saens, Delius and Borodin which were vividly portrayed, not least in the splendidly rhythmical Polotsvian Dances.

Parry's anthem I was Glad was given a strong and committed performance by the college choir before a total change of scene to the large concert band (conducted by college director of music Andrew Day) in the Planet Crypton and the brash worlds of Superman and 007 and a melody of Andrew Lloyd-Webber tunes – bright, swinging and brassy.

Though (once again) string tone was rather overcome by the brass, there was plenty of Pomp and Circumstance for the combined orchestra in Elgar's March No 4 and the showy theatre of Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No 2 concluded an evening of musical celebration which, in the words of founder/president and college teacher Adrienne Cleary, saw the original and wider vision of WSO amply fulfilled.