Trombone a blast from past; REVIEW SLIDES RULE Symphony Hall.

Byline: TONY COLLINS

AS BOLD as brass, the International Trombone Festival has been taking Birmingham by storm.

For once, the strings of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra were largely reduced to a supporting role as brass took over for this special concert.

The four-day festival, which closed on Sunday, featured a world record number of trombonists performing in one place.

But a particular highlight was the on-stage presentation of a national teaching award from the International Trombone Association to its president, former CBSO trombonist Denis Wick.

He, it was, who premiered Gordon Jacobs' Trombone Concerto, written specially for Wick, at Birmingham Town Hall in 1955.

How appropriate that current CBSO principal Philip Harrison should perform the same concerto in splendid fashion exactly 50 years after the orchestra last played it in June 1956.

The varied concert, conducted by Simon Wright, ranged from the pomp and ceremony of Walton's Crown Imperial and Elgar's Cockaigne to the Cornish Dances of Arnold. The strings finally came back into their own on Grainger's delightful Irish Tune from County Derry, and the majestic Jupiter from Holst's The Planets, which immediately followed the contrasting Mars and Saturn.

VERDICT: ***