Photos from Ashton Music Festival

These are some images taken during the Senior Band's spot at the Ashton Music Festival concert last Wednesday, 22nd September.  Apologies to the 'B' Band and Youth Band that there are no pictures available of their performances.  If you took some and are happy for them to be included here, please e-mail the band at pembertonband@hotmail.co.uk so that we can include them.

First are pictures from our opening number, the piece that began our Wychavon Programme "Jewish Wedding Dance":

The following were taken during Joanne Johnson's reprised performance of "Dark-Haired Marie":

These next photos were taken during the band's performance of "Dreaded Groove and Hook" by Simon Dobson and show some of the featured soloists, starting with Tom buckley on Euphonium: 

This is trombonist David Chapman demonstrating his 'Acid Jazz' side during the "Dreaded Groove and Hook":

 Carina Halliwell also shows off her solo skills:

Then came the 'novelty item', "Pizziwato Polka" featuring muted cornets...

 ...and muted trombones...

 ...and ofcourse, the duck call!

We then finished the programme with excerpts from "On the Shoulders of Giants":

As you can see, the audience really enjoyed our performance:

The audience appreciated our performance so much, that we had to give them more, and "MacArthur Park" has become a regular in our concerts recently:

Further appluase...

 ..this time it's time to go!

For information on the concert read the recent blog post "Ashton Music Festival, Wednesday 22nd Sept 2010"

Please feel free to leave comments on the photos.

Ashton Music Festival, Wed 22nd Sept 2010

Last night saw one of the highlights of the band's concert season when all three bands performed during the course of one music-filled evening.  This was part of Ashton Music Festival and the concert was held at St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School.  It is a great opportunity for members of all three bands to hear the other bands in concert.

The evening started with John Don-Duncan's youngsters, who were in fine form as usual.  The Pemberton Youth Band began with the classic march "True and Trusty" which was played with great confidence and joie de vivre!  Then the band featured a star-of-the-future, trombonist Gemma Riley, who ably and confidently performed "Kid Shifter".  Gemma won the British Open Solo and Quartet Junior Slow Melody Championship in November 2009 and is a great asset to the Pemberton Family.

Mr Don-Duncan then chose a German work entitled "Schniedizer" before giving us a wonderfully controlled and confident rendition of part of the test piece the band will perform at Fleetwood contest on 3rd October "Summer Fantasy".  The band finished their segment with a rousing rendition of the superb "Slaidburn" which was again confidently played.

Next to take to the stage was the Pemberton 'B' Band led by the band's regular Soprano player, Ediie Hill, who also chose to play a march, this time "Bramwyn" an exciting march which demonstrated the band's control and dynamic contrasts.  Following this the band played a more reflective item, "The Irish Blessing" which was well played.  Particular mention must go to the four players who started the piece David Lunt (on Flugel), Alex Nesmejanow (Solo Horn), Barbara Grant (Solo Baritone) and Bob Grant (Solo Euphonium).

The band then accompanied a soloist in the shape of Helen Don-Duncan, John's daughter, who chose to play "Weber's Last Waltz" a theme and variation solo that demonstrated Helen's technical skill as well as some wonderfully lyrical Euphonium playing.  A special guest then joined the band in the form Eddie's son, Peter Hill, who sang the Michael Buble hit "Haven't Met You Yet".  This was well received by audience and players alike.  Finishing the first half of the concert was a lively performance of 'Valero' which featured standing sections of the band and even some dancing from the cornet section

After the interval the Senior band took to the stage and relived their Wychavon programme, beginning again with "Jewish Wedding Dance" demonstrating some assured technical skill from all sections of the band.  This was again followed by Joanne Johnson's beautiful cornet solo "Dark-Haired Marie" which somehow was played even better than on Sunday!  "The Dreaded Groove and Hook" then followed again with featured excellent solo playing from Tom Buckley (Euphonium), David Chapman (Trombone) and Carina Halliwell (Flugelhorn).

With a healthy-sized, appreciative audience this was a perfect opportunity to also replay the 'novelty item' from Sunday and so "Pizziwato Polka" again featured the cornet and trombone sections.  The audience really seemed to enjoy the humorous twist on this classic!  This was then followed by the closing number from Sunday "On the Shoulders of Giants", again, the shorter version.  The band were once again in fine form demonstrating exceptional technique as well as wonderfully rich, full sounds and fine solo work from all sections of the band.

With huge applause from the audience and Mr Bumble-esque calls for 'more!' the band concluded the evening with a spectuclar performance of the Richard Harris popular 1968 song, which has also had big-band jazz versions performed by Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman - "MacArthur Park" as arranged for the Grimethorpe Band by Alan Catherall.

Another fine evening of music making from the Pemberton organisation, which was described by one of the spokesmen of the Festival as 'truly the highlight of the whole festival!'.

If you missed this concert, the Senior Band will next be performing at the DW Stadium in the first of a series of concerts which will be running over the coming season showcasing the band's versatility on the concert stage.  This concert on the 15th of October is entitled "Friday Night is Music Night".  The same weekend we will be performing at St Michael's Church, Swinley on Saturday 16th October.

Both the 'B' Band and the Youth Band will be competing at Fleetwood Contest on Sunday 3rd October at Fleetwood's Marine Hall.

Wychavon Festival of Brass 2010

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.