The band are celebrating again after another contesting success.
The weekend of the 7/8th of April saw us perform a concert on the Saturday evening for the British Legion in St. Dunstans church and take part in the SCABA Spring contest at the Town Hall in Hove the following Sunday.
Saturday’s concert was noted for the first ever performance of the youth band, who showed how far they were progressing with two pieces in the first and second half. It also saw the first ever performance of “Main Street” our chosen contesting piece which we would be playing the very next day, hopefully well enough to beat our fellow bands in the Second section.
Despite lacking a kit percussionist for the concert all went well (mostly) with the performance of the piece, picked in part because of its style which was totally different to pieces the band were particularly used to playing at contest level. “Main Street” describes a popular high street, sometimes busy, sometimes quiet, rarely menacing but always interesting with many things going on. It allows all sections of the band to show just what they are capable of and provides many varied themes.
The band were drawn to play first in our section on Sunday and had the honor of being the first to play SCABAs prize winning Millennium March – “The New Millennium”. Despite the announcers problems with the word Millennium, we gave a suitably rousing rendition. It must have been during this pieces that the Adjudicator first noted the very talented Trombonists who certainly gave their all on the day.
The band followed the march with the best performance of the test piece they had yet given, everything seemed to fit into place very well and the rough edges of the previous nights performance had been smoothed over in the 15 minute rehearsal before registration.
It came to the results and a band were delighted to learn that we not only had we picked up our fourth consecutive contesting placement, a very respectable 3rd prize “Music 23 cup” and £50 but that the we had been awarded the “Bob Ayling Memorial Cup” for best trombone section.
Our thanks to the other bands for some very competitive performances and congratulations to the Trombones, Steve Walkley (Bass), Colin Batt (2nd) and Hazel Walsh (1st).
I suspect we will have a job to keep them quiet for some time to come now but at least they have proved they can be musical sometimes !!