Despite what is happening elsewhere, the Last Night of the Proms will be celebrated as it always has done, the musical director of Manx Concert Brass has promised.

The Manx Last Night of the Proms takes place at the Gaiety Theatre this Saturday, from 7.30pm, featuring the Manx Concert Brass and the Manx Youth Band.

Ian Clague, who will conduct the groups through the concert, said that he expects the flags to fly and the audience to be in fine voice as they have come to expect from the long-running event.

’We have been holding the Manx Last Night of the Proms for around 30 years now and we are just going to do it as normal, as we have done for the past few years,’ said Ian.

’We will perform the classic music that you would expect from the Last Night concerts, including the Fantasia on British Sea Songs, by Sir Henry Wood, which ends with Rule Britannia, as well as opening the second half with the Radetzky March.’

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Manx Youth Band and the 25th anniversary of Manx Concert Brass, which grew out of the youth band.

Ian is looking forward to performing a special piece of music, commissioned especially to mark the occasion, a piece of music put together by the top international conductor Derek Broadbent, who has put together a suite of music called ’Manx Tales’ which begins and ends with Ellan Vannin and features three tunes taken from the Manx songbook

The British Proms concerts were severely affected by the coronavirus restriction and also became mired in controversy when the BBC ruled that Rule Britannia would be played without the singing, because of the potential racial insensitivity of the words, only to backtrack several days later.

Ian promised that the concert will go ahead in the same manner as every other Proms concert over the last 30 years, with no enforced changes to the programme.

’We won’t be getting bogged down in politics in the same way that they did in the UK and will be doing things as they have been done before,’ said Ian.

’I think there will be a real air of celebration to the event.

’We can’t ignore the fact that across the water people are not able to do all the things that would normally do and I think, without wanting to appear insensitive to their plight, we should take the opportunity to enjoy the concert as normal, and we should be very grateful we have that opportunity in the first place.

’If nothing else, people like a good sing-along and hopefully we will have a thoroughly enjoyable night and we’ll be able to just enjoy the music.’

Tickets for the Manx Last night of the Proms are £17.50 for adults and £5 for under-16s, available from villagaiety.com

by Mike Wade

Twitter:@iomnewspapers