AN unusual combination of instruments featured in Chipping Sodbury Music Society's February concert entitled “Debussy and Dance”.

Flercussion, comprising Jo Ashcroft on flute and Calum Huggan, marimba and percussion, treated the audience to arrangements of both familiar and less well known works.

Piazolla, the Argentine tango composer, provided the lively opening and closing numbers. The pronounced Latin American flavour was well captured. Four works by Debussy showed how well his music could be adapted for flute and marimba. Excerpts from his Children’s Corner Suite and Deux Arabesques were played with great sensitivity and there was ravishing flute playing in the second arabesque.

The Waltz Number 2 from Shostakovich’s Suite for Jazz Orchestra was sensuous and melodious, a deliberate response to the oppressive Soviet regime. Calum Huggan was able to let his hair down in Gledhill’s Battercada. This excitingly different work showed off all manner of percussive effects.

An enthusiastic audience was rewarded by an encore “Keep Cool Boy” from Bernstein’s West Side Story.

The next concert of Chipping Sodbury Music Society’s 67th Season, in the Town Hall at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 10 March 2015, will be given by “Men with Horns”; not only the Cornucopia Horn Quartet (Paul Sawbridge, Steve Macallister, Alistair Smith and Allen Cheshire) but also Niall Hoskin, Baritone, Steven Hollas, Piano and a Men’s Choir conducted by Mike Daniels. They will perform dramatic songs, stirring choruses and romantic horn quartets.

Our exciting new website at http://csmusicsociety.co.uk is packed with information about this and our other forthcoming events.

Gerry Philp