12/04/25 The Tweed-Street Band

Programme

• George Gershwin: Three Preludes
• Steven Verhelst: Song for Japan
• Horacio Fernández Vázquez: Son
• Astor Piazzolla: Ave Maria
• Karen Street: Horseshoe Bay
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov/Kerwin: Dance of the Tumblers

    Interval

• Béla Bartók: Romanian Dances
• Pixinguinha: Desprezado
• Ernesto Nazareth: Escorregando
• Karen Street/Zoë Tweed: Epilogue
• Czech Traditional: Rocking Song
• Karen Street: Apple Harvest

Review of the concert

A review of the concert at St Andrews, by Peter Merry.

One of the great pleasures of helping to select artists for a forthcoming season of CRM concerts is trying to achieve a blend of familiar and lesser known repertoire. We always try to have concerts performed by traditional ensembles, such as string quartets, piano trios, duos and wind quintets, as well as concerts by more unusual groups. In the past we have had a sensational trombone recital, a guitar duo, an American student orchestra and a pair of accordion players all to the delight of our faithful audience. Saturday’s concert came into the second category.

Since the wonderful Kanneh-Mason family has captured the hearts of the nation, I had the idea of bringing to CRM another musical family, one which, until recently, lived in nearby Wells. This was the first professional concert they had given together as a family group, though they had performed many times together at home and with friends. There are just four members of the Tweed family, Karen (Street) and Andy and their two gifted children, Zoë and Jamie. Karen is a professional saxophone player as well as being an accomplished accordionist, and is probably best known as a member of that exciting, dare I say it, raunchy, group of young women, the Fairer Sax, who graced our TV screens in the 80’s. As a composer, Karen is well known in both classical and jazz circles, especially for her works for saxophone. Andy, her husband, is also a busy professional sax player, performing with orchestras as well as jazz ensembles and sax groups.

Zoë, still in her twenties, went to Wells Cathedral School and then studied the French horn at the Royal Academy of Music. Since then she has had an impressive start to her musical career, playing in all the London symphony orchestras, recording, giving solo recitals and becoming a horn professor at the RCM. She has recently been appointed third horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, its youngest member.

Her brother, Jamie, also went to Wells Cathedral School and thence to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied the trombone. He is now a busy freelancer in London, playing with the symphony orchestras and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, amongst others and is presently on trial with the RPO. He is a keen skier, though he appeared at Saturday’s concert on crutches, having returned from a prang on a recent skiing holiday. He also claims to be able to play the trombone whilst riding a unicycle, something he didn’t do, alas on Saturday.

For an ensemble of these instruments much of the concert’s music had to be arranged, though there were some originals. The concert started with a cracking performance of three Preludes by Gershwin in which the group’s impeccable intonation and rhythmic precision were evident from the start. There followed a piece written in memory of the terrible Japanese tsunami of 2011 by Stephen Verheist, originally for trombone quartet. This was beautifully and sensitively performed, and despite its somewhat schmaltzy character, came over most movingly.

Three Latin American pieces followed. The first, Escorregando, by Nazareth, was a brilliant South American dance for the full ensemble which had the audience tapping their feet, smiles on their faces. How wonderfully uplifting are the sounds and rhythms of South America! Next was a dazzling trombone solo, Son by Vázquez in which the various moods and character of the composer’s son were explored. Jamie produced a thrilling performance displaying an awesome technique. Finally we heard Ave Maria by Piazzolla played lovingly by Andy on the soprano sax, accompanied by Karen on the accordion. This work is

not the Piazzolla of the tango but from a film score he wrote – slow-paced and reverential.

The first half ended with an attractive, original work, Apple Harvest for the quartet by Karen, part of a suite inspired by apples.

Duets by the American hornplayer, Gunther Schuller and J S Bach began the second half, immaculately played by Jamie and Zoë. This was followed by the whole quartet playing the wonderfully evocative Romanian Dances by Bartok. Jamie, accompanied by his mother on the piano, then launched into a wild South American piece, Deperezado by Pixinghuinha. Jamie certainly knew how to make music sound desperate.

There followed two original compositions by Karen. First was Horseshoe Bay, played by the quartet. It had something of the wide open spaces of America and for me brought to mind that wonderful film score to The Big Country. Her second piece, for horn and piano was based on the Epilogue to Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. This in its original form is played off-stage by the horn player at the conclusion of the Serenade. Karen’s Epilogue takes the Britten work as its starting point and explores such techniques as the open harmonics and playing into the inside of the piano. A beautiful piece, expertly played by Zoë.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s rumbustious Dance of the Tumblers brought this fascinating and unusual concert to a glorious end. The verve and the joy of a brilliant family of musicians playing together was clear to all the audience. A glorious encore of that wonderful standard, Somewhere over the Rainbow, was a memorable bonus.

The Tweed-Street Band

Andy Tweed

Karen Street

Zoë Tweed

Jamie Tweed