On the 9th July Cory Band took to the stage at the Innsbrucker Promenaden Konzerte in Austria and performed to a capacity audience in excess of 1000 people. Concert goers were also standing at the back and sides of the large courtyard to watch the European Champions perform.
The concert was part of a month-long event, ‘The Innsbruck Promenade Concert Series’, sees a host of musical ensembles perform daily for the entire month including the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra, United States Marine Band and many many more. In 2021, even with Covid restrictions in place, the series attracted in the region of 22,000 people and the series will attract more this year with fewer restrictions in place.
Cory were originally invited to perform in their 2020 event but due to Covid restrictions they were unable to attend but were delighted that the invitation was extended again this year. Cory are also grateful to Buffet Crampon who is a major Partner of the event and the band through Besson Musical Instruments.
You can see more on the series here - Programme & Tickets - Innsbrucker Promenadenkonzerte
Cory Band entertained the gathered audience with Brass Machine to open and included ‘Glorious Ventures’ (Tom Hutchinson Cornet Solo) and ‘Variations on a ninth’. In the 2nd half Cory Band presented "Treasure Island: A Celebration of Adventure" which included ‘A Motley Crew’, ‘The Hispaniola’ (Glyn Williams Euphonium Solo) and ‘Soliloquy’ (Lito Fontana (Trombone Solo). The encore for the concert was ‘Rolling Thunder’
The concert was the band’s first overseas concert since the Covid-19 Pandemic and Covid still proved a challenge with several members who were affected in the week leading up to the concert. The band also had to deal with the lengthy delays on passport renewals which meant that one member was unable to travel due to delays currently being faced.
Cory Band Manager, Neil Blockley said ‘We were grateful to some wonderful guest players from the UK who travelled with us but a special mention has to go to the star trombone soloist Lito Fontana who is based in Austria and kindly agreed to perform on solo trombone with us with less than 24 hour’s notice - he played the stand-up solo 'Soliloquy' which was featured as part of our Treasure Island set. We are grateful to him for giving up his ticket for the concert which he'd already booked so he could join us on stage.’
The day of travel was a very long day and Neil takes up the story:
‘The band left Cardiff at 5am to travel to Heathrow and then took an 11am flight to Munich. When they arrived at Heathrow there were queues of people outside the airport and it was utter chaos. We got directed to one of the many long queues and most of the band thought that we'd never get on the plane on time, with the check-in of all the instruments and security checks but with some Welsh charm we managed to get Fast Tracked. The other group of 40 students who were also on our plane didn't have such charm and then caused the plane to be an hour delayed in an already tight schedule. We arrived in Munich and the airport experience was much calmer and thankfully all the instruments and uniform arrived safely and we made our way to Innsbruck with a 2.5 hour bus ride.
We got to the concert venue at around 6pm and thanks to the excellent support of the concert series organisers Bernhard Schlogl and Christiane Mayr, the stage and percussion was already setup so that we could have a brief sound check and rehearsal which finished at 7.05pm. We had a brief bite to eat in the changing rooms, got dressed into uniforms and directly on 7.30pm the town hall bells rang and as they finished the band took the stage through the audience, with not a moment to spare.’
The band came to life straight away with the rousing Brass Machine and the one and a half hour concert without an interval flew by in the blink of an eye. The audience reception was fantastic with several standing ovations at the end of the concert and the players were delighted to gain immediate positive feedback as they joined the organisers and audience members for some brief post-concert refreshments before checking in to their near-by hotel for the night.
Concert overseas trips can be tough on players to perform at the highest level after early starts, many hours of travelling and stressful airport situations, but it is really heartening that after so long of not being able to do weekends away like this, the players were still able to put that aside and perform fantastically and were rewarded by such an appreciative audience.
Cory players arrived back home at around 9pm on Sunday evening, and less than 24 hours later were back in the bandroom preparing a completely different concert programme for the Brass & Voices concert as part of the Welsh Proms concert series which took place on Wednesday 13th July.
Their travelling for the year has only just started as they now take a few weeks off before the 8-day tour of South Korea at the start of August. We look forward to sharing their further updates from that tour over coming weeks.
