MUCH of the Island’s young musical talent was on show at a Christmas concert performed to a sell-out audience at Newport’s Medina Theatre on Sunday.
The IW Youth Concert Band’s Christmas concert featured a programme of seasonal melodies, marches, film themes, carols and singalongs.
A feature of the event was the presentation of an accolade to the senior band’s manager, Charissa Bartram, for her services to the ensemble.
In addition to the Friends of the Band Award she received, Charissa, who will be going to university to study nursing, also received the Leaver’s Certificate.
The band opened the concert with the rousing Christmas Overture and the heart-warming 60s hit, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, made famous by crooner Andy Williams.
There was also a selection of John Williams’s tunes from the Home Alone movies. The 20-strong junior band took the stage, under musical director Donna Brihmani, and played Winter Wonderland, Walking in the Air and the Mariah Carey hit, All I Want for Christmas is You.
St Francis Primary School Choir, Ventnor, joined both bands for renditions of Away in a Manger and Deck the Halls, before the senior band played Philip Sparke’s arrangement of Veni Immanuel, a highlight of the concert. The first half closed with Alan Silvestri’s theme from the animated movie, The Polar Express.
The second half kicked off with Season’s Greetings, a Christmas march by conductor Martyn Stroud, before the band gave a spirited version of Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival. More familiar seasonal melodies included The Holly And The Ivy and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.

Reporter: jonm@iwcpmail.co.uk