The orchestra performs at the Ramada on Friday
By Fran Gillespie/Doha

“The most ambitious thing we’ve attempted yet!” declared the director of the Doha Community Orchestra (DCO), Brita Fray, at the end of a dazzling performance of the half-hour-long music from the film The Snowman.
Talking to Gulf Times at the orchestra’s winter concert at the Ramada Hotel on Friday afternoon, she said that they had been rehearsing this long and demanding piece since September.
“It’s extremely intricate,” she added, “with so many instruments such as the harp coming in at different times, and then the spoken narrative to coordinate as well.”
But carry it off they did, with an amazingly accomplished rendition of the enduringly popular music by the composer Howard Blake, including the haunting melody We’re Walking in the Air. This was superbly sung by eleven-year-old Aaron Kersey, a pupil of Brita Fray’s at the American School in Doha.
“I was a bit nervous at first,” confessed Aaron afterwards, “but Mrs Fray said, ‘You can do it!’ and once I got started it was OK.” Aaron takes part in ASD talent shows, and he added that he wouldn’t mind taking a solo part in a performance again if the opportunity arose.
The narrator of author Raymond Brigg’s timeless story about a little boy who is befriended by the snowman he has built was Bernie Lyons, known to generations of Doha expatriates as the presenter for the last 34 years of QBS’ Breakfast Show. He’d never done anything of this kind before, he said, and he had spent the last month rehearsing his narration with a CD of the music, as timing was vitally important, and then over the last few days with the live orchestra. At times his words were drowned out by the music — a more powerful microphone might have helped — but enough was audible for those few who did not already know it to follow the story, and most children know it by heart.
No DCO winter concert is complete without a performance of Leroy Anderson’s ever-popular Sleigh Ride, and the concert got off to a cracking start with this fast and stylish toe-tapping piece, which requires split-second timing, especially for the percussion. After the interval it was the turn of the Doha Community Wind Orchestra, directed and conducted by Jim Kulpa.
The Doha Community Orchestra was founded in 2005 with just ten string players, and is now so large that two years ago it separated into two sections, the Wind Orchestra and the String Orchestra, although they still come together for some performances as in the first half of the concert.
The Wind Orchestra performed a selection of music associated with winter and the Christmas season, starting with Robert Rendel’s Little Bolero Boy, a combination of the themes from the song The Little Drummer Boy and Ravel’s orchestral piece Bolero.
Beginning quietly, each section of the orchestra joins in one by one against the background of rhythmic drumming, and the sound gradually builds up to the dramatic crashing discordant finale of Bolero.
Less successful perhaps was the arrangement by Richard Saucedo of the 500-year-old Coventry Carol which followed. This ancient song, which was originally part of a mystery play, has retained its popularity in England because of its haunting simplicity and the theme of the grief of the women of Bethlehem over their infant sons slaughtered on the orders of Herod. It does not lend itself to adaptation or re-arrangement.
Ralph Vaughan Williams had more success in his incorporation of the old English tune Greensleeves into his Fantasia, which was in turn included in the second movement of a tribute to the great composer by Robert Smith, entitled A Fantasia for Band. The Wind Orchestra gave a moving performance, beginning with a lyrical solo by the flute and exploring variations on the ancient melody as the other instruments join in.
Wednesday’s memorable concert was rounded off by a return to American composer Leroy Anderson, this time his fast-paced Christmas Festival with its medley of well-known Christmas carol music old and new, not forgetting Jingle Bells without which no Christmas season is complete!
The Doha Community Orchestra was founded to provide young musicians of intermediate standard and above with the opportunity of performing Western classical music in a full symphony orchestra alongside more experienced musicians. The musicians range from young learners playing in public for the first time through to professionals, music teachers and keen amateurs.
Information can be found on the website 
www.dohaorchestra.com
The orchestra’s main sponsor is ConocoPhillips.

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