On Sunday 19th September 2010, the Pemberton Old Wigan DW Band travelled to Evesham in order to take part in the Wychavon Festival of Brass, a contest the band has had a number of previous successes at, winning the contest in 2007, coming 2nd in 2008 and 3rd in 2009, picking up numerous individual awards along the way, including Best Percussion last year.
Conductor Mark Bentham chose a varied, challenging programme for the band, that showed a variety of playing styles and displayed the bands technique, ensemble playing, dynamic range and showcasing many of the band's soloists. We had run the programme out at a concert/open rehearsal on Thursday to an audience made up of parents from the local primary school where our 2nd Trombonist and conductor of the Youth Band, Mr John Don-Duncan teaches. This was well received by the audience and so the band were full of confidence that this could be a winning year.
The Championship Section bands entered this year was on the low side, only 5, however in the mix were the recently crowned British Open Champions Tredegar Town Band (Ranked 4th in the World of Brass Rankings) and the BTM Band (Ranked 18th), both from Wales. Pemberton World of Brass Ranking of 25 and so beating either of these bands would be a rankings boost and a great start to the new contest season.
BTM started the contest, followed by Milton Keynes Brass and then the British Open Champions Tredegar Town Band.
Pemberton then began they're assault on the Wychavon title with Mark Bentham's own arrangement of "The Jewish Wedding Dance" by Jacques Press, which is a technical showcase for the entire band, with a particular feature for Xylophone, ably played by Nicola Marsh. Although this wasn't played with as much control and accuracy as we would have hoped the performance was still strong and we were certain it would find favour with Adjudicator John Berryman.
The programme then changed pace with the Cornet solo "Dark-Haired Marie" by Goff Richards, which is based on a traditional New Zealand song, and beautifully played by Principal Cornet Joanne Johnson. This not only demonstrated Joanne's stylish, velvet-toned, lyrical playing, but also the band's control and skill in accompanying a delicate solo.
Another change of pace took the band into the realm of 'Acid Jazz' through a piece written by Simon Dobson titled "The Dreaded Groove and Hook". The piece is not only a break from the standard repertoire of today's brass bands, but also features a number of the band's soloists. It starts with a lengthy, Euphonium solo, which featured guest Tom Buckley from the Hepworth band who was on fine form and then moves into a full band break. Solos from Trombonist David Chapman and Flugel player Carina Halliwell followed and were both handled tastefully and demonstrated strong playing. The piece continues to demonstrate the band's 'Acid Jazz' ability and full, heavy sound and closes with enormous chords from all sections of the band.
Following this was our 'novelty item' which is twist on a classic. Johann Strauss II's popular "Pizzicato Polka" was re-vamped by our conductor to feature muted cornets and trombones, playing 'wah'wah' effects throughout the piece and a solo 'duck-call' from Soprano player and Honorary-Percussionist John Atkinson. This was met with great appreciation from the audience.
The band then finished their 20-minute entertainment programme with excerpts from the recent British Open test piece "On the Shoulders of Giants" by Peter Graham. This opened with the fanfare quotations from Bruckner's Eighth Symphony, and then moved into sections from the third movement which featured quick, virtuosic semiquaver passages throughout the band. Later in the movement Graham then quotes the legends of the late 19th Century Brass Virtuoso scene with Arthur Prior's "Bluebells of Scotland" being quoted by the trombones, snippets from Herbert L Clarke's "Southern Cross" featuring Repiano Cornet "The Debutante" featuring Principal Cornet and then Simone Mantia's "Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms" featuring Euphonium, all exceptionally played. The work then builds to a climatic, Peter Graham trademark finish with full band sounds taking quotes from the spiritual "Steal Away" and Arthur Bliss' "Chess".
The band felt happy with it's performance, but knew that unless Tredegar had had a bad day we would be destined to finish no higher than second. It came as a shock, however, to find that we were placed 3rd by Virtuosi GUS conductor Berryman after such a long day of travelling and a month of hard work. The margin of Tredegar's win demonstrates their current form and the rankings would have placed us 3rd behind the other Welsh contenders BTM.
Although disappointed, the band look forward to many more opportunities to challenge these two bands further in the coming season, BTM at the Grand Shield next May, and Tredegar at the Masters next May and hopefully also at the British Open next September, should we qualify!
Top Level banding never stops....
On Wednesday 22nd September 2010 all three bands will be performing at the Ashton Music Festival at St Edmund Arrowsmith High School, where the Senior Band will relive the Wychavin programme with a selection of other concert items.
