Bardi Wind

A Christmas Festival

Christmas Festival

Saturday 21st December 2024 at 7:30 pm

Holy Trinity Church, Leicester

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David Calow Conductor
Colin Blackler Compère
John Florance Reader
Bardi Wind Orchestra

Holy Trinity Church
Regent Road
Leicester LE1 6XE

Tickets
Adult £15
Concessions £12
18 & Under / Students / NUS £6

Although tickets will be available on the door, please book in advance where possible

It’s not quite Christmas until the Bardi Wind’s traditional concert with all your favourite festive music, carols and seasonal readings.

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Bardi Wind and Oadby & Wigston Lions raise over £2,000 for RNLI

6th September 2024

Bardi Wind Orchestra Music Director David Calow, Orchestra Manager Robert Calow and members of Oadby & Wigston Lions Club were at De Montfort Hall at the end of August to present a cheque for over £2,000 to Emma Cunnington, Community Manager of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The cheque was raised at the annual Bardi Wind Orchestra charity concert held in association with the Lions Club back in June.  

Over the past two years the Bardi Wind Orchestra and Oadby & Wigston Lions have raised almost £4,000 for the RNLI. The success of the concert held in 2023 led to an invitation to do a further concert this year. The 2024 concert was one of several musical and other events held nationally to mark the milestone 200th Anniversary of the RNLI.  Dreadful weather on the day of the presentation led to this rather striking photograph on the stairs of De Montfort Hall.  

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Bardi Wind celebrate 200 Years of RNLI at De Montfort hall

10th June 2024

Thank you to all who joined us for what was a very successful Bardi Wind Orchestra concert on Sunday afternoon celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.  

There was a real buzz of anticipation in the De Montfort Hall for an afternoon of ‘Fantasy and Adventure’, with music from Disney, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean featuring prominently, and the feet were soon tapping!

The Wind Orchestra, in association with Oadby and Wigston Lions Club, were under the baton of guest conductor Dan Watson making his debut appearance, together with local favourites David Morris and Jenny Saunders joining them for several vocal items. Presenting the concert in a last-minute change to the programme, the Wind Orchestra were also fortunate to be able to secure the services of well-known local broadcaster Dave Andrews, who was able to talk to representatives of the RNLI about the amazing and invaluable work that they have been doing over the last 200 years.  

Final totals for the charity collections are still being tallied, but those collection buckets were certainly very heavy following another successful summer charity concert.

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Bardi Wind Prepare for return to De Montfort Hall to celebrate 200 years of the RNLI

29th May 2024

For their annual De Montfort Hall charity concert on 9th June, the Bardi Wind Orchestra are helping the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to celebrate their 200th Anniversary year!

With a theme of ‘Fantasy and Adventure’, the concert will feature well-loved music from Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. 

The orchestra, in association with Oadby and Wigston Lions, were invited to do this concert after last year’s highly successful event when, on a sweltering June day one of the crew from the Skegness Lifeboat took to the stage to talk about the work of the RNLI in his full waterproof seagoing kit! A small inflatable lifeboat stationed outside the De Montfort Hall attracted considerable attention but fortunately did not have to be put out to sea. 

This year’s concert will be conducted by guest conductor Dan Watson, and bets are currently on as to whether he will don a pair of yellow wellingtons to conduct some of the second half as did BWO’s Music Director David Calow last year! Join the Bardi Wind for a great summer afternoon of music on 9th June at 3pm at De Montfort Hall.

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Bardi Wind Christmas Festival the perfect festive treat!

18th December 2023

Bardi Wind Orchestra’s annual Christmas Festival was a big success at the weekend!

Holy Trinity Leicester, was beautifully dressed in a great array of Christmas Trees and lights, and made a wonderful setting for the concert. Once Conductor David Calow’s baton was raised for the title piece, Leroy Anderson’s evergreen ‘A Christmas Festival’, and the BWO sounded the first chords, the audience (many of who have been coming since the series started over 20 years ago) knew that Christmas 2023 was underway.  

A programme of seasonal favourites, serious and more light-hearted, followed. These were interspersed with readings by Leicester’s own John Florance. Amongst other items, John read the perennial favourite ‘Christmas at Lewis’s’ and John Betjeman’s 1954 poem ‘Christmas’. He confessed to the audience that he once left the poem out of a BWO Christmas programme and was told in no uncertain terms by audience members afterwards that he should not do that again.  

In a colourful array of Christmas outfits for the second half the BWO players ended by commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1973 Slade Christmas hit ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ which had the audience singing lustily with some enthusiastically waving arms in the air.

Merry Christmas all from the Bardi!

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Bardi Wind’s Festive Tradition Returns to Holy Trinity on Saturday

11th December 2023

Christmas gets off to a flying start on Saturday 16th December with the Bardi Wind Orchestra’s annual Christmas blockbuster at Holy Trinity Church!

Many in Leicester now say that their Christmas starts when they hear the Bardi Wind sound the first notes of Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival!

The programme contains all the best loved Christmas music from festive songs like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Little Drummer Boy, through carols such as In the Bleak Midwinter and the Carol of the Bells to film music from Frozen and The Polar Express. 

Seasonal readings are once again provided by popular local presenter John Florance, formerly of BBC Radio Leicester, and the concert is hosted by Colin Blackler. And there are, of course, items for the audience to sing along to – and last but not least in the traditional finale we’ll all join in, raise the roof, and celebrate the 50th anniversary this year of Slade’s greatest Christmas hit, Merry Christmas Everybody! 

The concert proves to be a popular one each year, so be sure to book your tickets online in advance to avoid disappointment.

Bardi Wind Christmas Festival

Saturday 16 December at 7.30pm – Holy Trinity Church, Regent Road, Leicester

It’s not quite Christmas until this annual Bardi festive tradition!

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Bardi Wind at DMH a great success for heroes of the RNLI

12th June 2023

The Bardi Wind Orchestra rounded off their 30th anniversary season with their annual charity gala concert at De Montfort Hall on Sunday, this year fundraising in aid of the RNLI.

Well known in recent times from the BBCs programme ‘Saving Lives at Sea’ the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was the chosen charity for the Bardi Wind Orchestra’s annual charity gala in association with the Oadby and Wigston Lions Club. The charity receives no government funding but for almost 200 years has been saving lives from water in the most challenging conditions. Conductor David Calow chose a range of music appropriate to the invaluable work of the RNLI volunteers with the title ‘Heroes! Action and adventure from the Movies’. 

The BWO were joined by vocal soloists David Morris and Rebecca Temple who featured in each half and the programme was compered adeptly by  Colin Blackler with informative introductions to each piece (allowing the players to get their collective breath back). After the interval Colin had the opportunity to interview RNLI volunteers Brad and Alex who had travelled all the way from RNLI Skegness to be at the event. On stage, on probably the hottest afternoon of the summer so far, volunteer Alex wore his RNLI yellow crew equipment, of which the life jacket on it’s own weighed more than a heavy weekly shop. Launch authority Brad told us that he had come off a volunteer shift at 6am that morning! 

The programme for the concert included appropriate titles such as The Magnificent Seven, Band of Brothers, the Superman March and The Great Escape but perhaps the most appropriate piece had to be The Padstow Lifeboat, a march by English composer Malcolm Arnold complete with fog horn effects (thanks to a very good imitation by BWO lower brass).  Scene stealer for this number was David Calow who strode on to the stage and conducted in a fetching pair of borrowed bright yellow RNLI wellies!  The only thing missing was a lifeboat and even one of those (well, a model) was parked outside De Montfort Hall in the sunshine. Another great BWO concert to launch summer for the enthusiastic audience.

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Bardi Wind present Heroes!, in support of the RNLI

5th June 2023

The Bardi Wind Orchestra players are now once again rehearsing enthusiastically for their annual charity concert at De Montfort Hall which is being presented in association with the Oadby and Wigston Lions Club.  

The chosen charity for 2023 is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) which may seem a little unusual for a city located 100 miles away from the sea, but we have all seen the bright orange and navy rescue boats when we’ve been on seaside holidays.  Those same boats often appear in TV news items and, who knows, any of us or our families and friends could have need of their help at some point. The RNLI is a charity and is independent of the government – less than 1% of their funding comes from government sources, their lifesaving service depends on the generosity of their supporters.  The interest created by the BBCs ‘Saving Lives at Sea’ programmes has done a great deal to promote the excellent work done by the RNLI – real unsung heroes.

The title of the Bardi Wind concert is, appropriately,  ‘Heroes’  with a programme of music taken from a range of superhero movies including  Superman, The Avengers, The Incredibles, Star Wars and more.  Conductor David Calow will be joined by guest singers David Morris and Rebecca Temple as well as regular compere Colin Blackler. A great afternoon of memorable music is guaranteed!

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David Calow conducting the Bardi Wind Orchestra, David Morris, Rebecca Temple, Colin Blackler.

BARDI WIND CHARITY CONCERT: HEROES!

ACTION AND ADVENTURE FROM THE MOVIES

The Avengers, Superman, Star Wars, The Incredibles, The Great Escape, Thunderbirds and more

Sunday 11 June 3pm
DE MONTFORT HALL, LEICESTER

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Bardi Wind Orchestra makes a triumphant Christmas return

20th December 2022

It was three years since the last Bardi Wind Orchestra Christmas concert in December 2019 so a return to the Holy Trinity Church stage was an eagerly anticipated event.

In the 30 years that BWO have existed there have been 21 Christmas concerts and it has often been said that ‘Christmas begins properly with the Bardi Wind Christmas concert’. The 2022 Christmas concert had a fresh new look about it with the theme ‘Christmas at the Movies’ but a glance at the programme revealed that lots of old favourites were there with seasonal readings by John Florance and a finale with the enthusiastic singing of ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ almost bringing down  the roof of a beautifully decorated (a forest of Christmas trees)  Holy Trinity church. 

Film favourites with a Christmas flavour like ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ and ‘The Polar Express’ were sprinkled through the programme.  In line with the whole refresh of Bardi branding this autumn the programmes and publicity had a really festive flavour. But the real joy was seeing familiar faces who have attended previous concerts, some since the first one, appearing at the ticket desk.

It was good to see new faces in the Orchestra too, alongside long-serving members there were a number of up-and-coming younger players who were relishing the opportunity to play with this high profile group. Received opinion in the foyer after the concert and since was that the sound has never been better. Christmas has properly begun!

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Bardi Wind Christmas at the Movies concludes a busy 30th anniversary year

13th December 2022

The Bardi Wind Orchestra has had a busy 30th Anniversary year. With the Jubilee Proms in the Park, attended by over 5,000 people, and the De Montfort Hall Jubilee celebrations the Orchestra are concluding their 30th year with a much anticipated return of the Bardi Wind Christmas Festival.

After two years away, the Orchestra are excited to return to Holy Trinity Church, on Regent Road, for their traditional festive celebration. For many, it’s not quite Christmas until the Bardi Wind announce the season with Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival, a pot pourri of carol tunes setting the tone for the evening ahead.

This year’s concert has an added treat with a particular focus on music from favourite festive films including Home Alone, Harry Potter, Frozen, The Polar Express, The Snowman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, White Christmas and more.

Familiar traditions will also return though with readings from former BBC Radio Leicester presenter John Florance, and carols and Christmas hits featuring vocals from soprano Nicky Bingham and compère Colin Blackler. Truly a fantastic evening to look forward to for all the family!

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Highlights of the Bardi Wind Orchestra’s 30th anniversary year so far

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