10th June 2025
Sunday’s Bardi Wind Orchestra concert delivers exactly what was needed for a stylish but meaningful VE DAY80 commemoration.
One of the City’s main events to celebrate VE Day80 was a concert given by the Bardi Wind Orchestra under the baton of Music Director and Conductor David Calow at De Montfort Hall on Sunday. The BWO have given charity concerts, in conjunction with the Oadby and Wigston Lions Club at DMH over the last 16 years but this was one of the most memorable ever, with a carefully chosen programme reflecting the war years with melodies that were evidently very familiar to most of the audience.
It was one of the largest audiences for a BWO concert in recent years and they were expertly guided through the programme by Martin Ballard who had marshalled a remarkable range of facts about the pieces played, from music which accompanied actual wartime films, to much loved Eric Coates themes from BBC Radio and from more up to date films depicting the war. He also set the music into context with facts about how the war affected Leicester itself.
Vocal items came from David Morris and Jenny Saunders including We’ll Meet Again, and handkerchiefs emerged from pockets more than once. Lt Colonel (retd) Bryon Brotherton MBE was the solo piper in an arrangement of Amazing Grace and later returned to talk about the work of the chosen charity, the Army Benevolent Fund of which he is Chairman of the Leicestershire and Rutland Committee.
It would be difficult to pick out any one piece of music as a highlight, as there were far too many, but two memories of the occasion that will linger are the standing ovation by the whole audience for 100 year old RAF Veteran Philip Kendal (who once built a stage for a concert given by Vera Lynn!) and the sight of virtually every Mayor and other Dignitaries in Leicester, Leicestershire and Ruland wearing their chains having a photograph in the interval reception.
The rousing and accomplished finale of Coates’ Dam Busters March sent a very happy audience on their way home.
