Monday, 10 November 2008

Contest Time

With the summer season over, the band kicked off the ‘business end’ of the year by taking part in the SWBBA’s Exmouth Brass Band Festival, held on Saturday 6th September. This is always an enjoyable day out and, being an entertainment contest, provides the band with an opportunity to put together a programme that is not only challenging, but one that we know the audience (and hopefully the adjudicator!) will enjoy. Having done well in previous years, there was perhaps an element of disappointment in coming 8th out of 15, especially as the adjudicator’s comments were generally positive and therefore provided little in the way of constructive criticism. With Exmouth over for another year, it wasn’t long before it was time to step onto a contest stage once again – this time for the SWBBA Annual Championships held in Torquay. Despite spending weeks preparing Gareth Churcher’s test piece ‘Episodes for Brass’, it is perhaps fair to say that the band never quite reached full strength, and could have done with a little more time to ensure all the parts came together and to put some finishing touches to the piece. From playing off of the notoriously tricky number one draw, the band came in 6th place out of 7, with one of the eight bands in our section having withdrawn prior to the contest. Although we gave it our all on the day, this result instils even greater motivation to show the third section what we’re really made of at the all-important Areas next March!

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