The Haunted Halls
This piece was commissioned by Philip Biggs and Dr Nicholas Childs for the National Children’s Brass Band of Great Britain for the Summer Course 2006 with funds provided by ‘Youth Music’.
The idea behind the piece lies in the magnificent surroundings in which the annual National Children’s Brass Band of Great Britain course is held – The Bromsgrove School.
The course is held over a week-long period at the school. Both staff and students stay on the premises for the duration, making use of the school's boarding facilities. The school itself is huge with various buildings on site and steeped in history.
On entering the premises, you are immediately engulfed in the school’s splendid grandeur and tradition, as its unique appearance grabs you and whisks you off to a world of old-fashioned Headmasters, Public Schoolboys and Boarding School antics.
As the evening draws to a close there is a dark and eerie side to the building that sends a tingle up your spine.
The piece originated from a story I imagined where at night ghouls, ghosts and spirits emerge from inside the building’s walls, paintings and surroundings to cause havoc in their desperate attempt to free themselves from the purgatory that is the spirit world by haunting the living.
A group of pupils wake, hearing the commotion and startle the spirits who see this as an opportunity to possess the beings in order to free them from their turmoil. A great chase ensues with the pupils using any means possible to escape from their pursuing spirits.
The only weapon against the spirits is the dawning sunshine and so the adventure begins with the pupils having to escape from the chasing spirits and hope that dawn breaks and the sunshine engulfs the supernatural, imploding them back to their world.
Paul Lovatt-Cooper, August 2006