THE early music group Red Priest returned to the Palace Theatre, Newark, on Saturday by popular demand to perform at Newark and District Music Society's Freddy Bond concert.

When the musicians took to the stage two familiar faces were missing - recorder virtuoso Piers Adams and violinist Julia Bishop. Julia had been taken to hospital that day to have her baby induced and as Piers was the expectant father, he had gone with her.  Cellist Angela East and harpsichordist Howard Beach were instead joined by violinists Jean Patterson and Jo Parker, Oliver Webber on viola, Mandy McNamara on bass and the very talented Jill Kemp on treble and sopranino recorders - all dressed in red and black.

Jill, who had studied under Piers, had only received a phone call that morning and had agreed to stand in - with only one chance of a rehearsal that afternoon.  Members of the music club, however, were not disappointed as Jill was superb at playing and her fingers moved up and down the instruments with speed and precision.

Her first appearance was through the auditorium as she performed Vivaldi's Concerto in D Major - The Goldfinch, with the rest of the musicians.  The piece requires a lot of trilling fingerwork, which Jill did excellently, and I liked the way the violins and recorder echoed each other in the first lively and invigorating movement.   The second was melodious and full of olde worlde charm while the third was another lively trilling piece with Jill's fingers moving like the clappers.   The next piece to be performed was Corelli's Concerto Grosso In G Minor- Per La Notte De Natale, in seven movements.  This piece is nicknamed the Christmas Concerto because it features instrumental pastorales - a common feature in baroque Christmas choral works.  The piece featured some frenzied playing to make a cacophony of sound, an elegant melodic piece, a lively piece building to a crescendo and a jig with the viola, bass and cello giving that particular movement a very rich sound indeed.

Next came a performance of The Bells by Byrd, performed on harpsichord by Howard Beach. It is based on two notes and really sounded like the pealing of Christmas church bells.  This simplistic sound was surrounded by a cascade of notes and showed off Howard's fancy fingerwork to a tee.  

Jill returned to play Telemann's Concerto for Treble Recorder in C Major and what a treat it was.  The first movement sounded like it was an elegant regal piece, with a rich sound from the treble, some nice trills and some plucking by the violins and viola.  The second movement was fast and furious and there was good tonguing and scale work needed by Jill.   The third was slower, with longer held notes, and sounded like a bird calling while the fourth movement saw Jill swap to the sopranino for a lot of staccato work and fast fingering.

The second half began with Bach's Prelude in C Minor, wonderfully performed by Angela with its rich and melodic sounds booming out of her cello for this unusual piece.  I particularly liked Vivaldi's Concerto for Treble Recorder in C Minor as it was a lovely simple baroque piece but pushed Jill's playing to the limits, with lots of chromaticism and crossbeat slurring.  It was grand and dynamic, rich and melancholy as well as mellow in places, with lots of trills and fast fingering again. Handel's Concerto Grosso in B Flat Major started as a slow regal piece and then built into a gavotte and a lively hornpipe that you really wanted to jig about to.

The final piece was Vivaldi's Concerto for Sopranino Recorder in C Major - a very difficult piece for a recorder player as the soloist is required to play scale and arpeggio passages at almost unbelievable speeds while in the central movement, they are required to sound like a lone bird, chirping away, while the strings give a pizzicato accompaniment.  This was not a problem for Jill proving she must now be one of the top recorder players in the world and I hope she returns to play again for the club either as a solo performer or with another group.  What a wonderful evening of music, ending with an encore of Winter from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  

Since the concert ended I was told that Julia and Piers had a girl on Tuesday, weighing just over 6lb. It was suggested she be called Scarlet but they are still thinking about it - DAB.