15th October 2011 - National Finals (Championship)
Test Piece: Breath Of Souls – Paul Lovatt-Cooper
Adjudicators: David Read MBE, Luc Vertommen, Rob Wiffen
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London
Following on from the disappointment of a twelfth place at the British Open, we began preparing for the National Finals at the Albert Hall. This year’s set test piece was Breath of Souls by Paul Lovatt-Cooper, which proved to be a controversial choice. From feedback we received, most the people playing the piece didn’t like it, yet most audiences that heard it loved it. The piece featured a choice of two cadenzas for each of solo euphonium, horn, Eb bass, soprano, flugel and trombone. We let the players pick the one they wanted to play.
Rehearsals went well, although we did have to de-camp to another hall in Rothwell after our booked venue was struck by a power cut. We also had some health problems in the lead-up to the contest, with a couple of players needing hospital visits and others being afflicted with the usual seasonal bugs. All were well for contest day.
We left for London on the Friday morning. We had once more booked a double-decker coach to cope with the large number of supporters that travelled with us. This year the bus seemed to have many children on – belonging to both supporters and band members – with the youngest being less than three weeks old. The journey went well with just a short delay in a queue on the M25, though we did take the time to find the coach on a traffic camera using the power of the iPhone!
As we left earlier we had time to relax in London before getting some dinner, and then it was time for our final rehearsal before contest day. This year we rehearsed in the Baden Powell Centre, but thankfully we didn’t bring too much percussion to take up to the second floor! We had to walk back to the hotel after the rehearsal because the bus driver had done his hours for the day.
We were up early on the Saturday morning and returned to the Baden Powell |Centre for a short rehearsal and to wait for the draw. The bus was a little late due to some bridge closures, but we still arrived in good time. The draw seemed good with us drawn 14th out of 20, so we decided to meet back at 12:45 for a final rehearsal. This allowed some band members to catch the first five bands, and others to go back to the hotel for second breakfast.
We arrived at the hall slightly too early, but enjoyed standing outside in the sun waiting for our descent into the depths of the hall. After getting changed and registering the band took to the stage for our performance. We felt that the piece started well and that there were no problems. There was the odd clip in the cadenzas, but Paul Argyle on Soprano in particular was excellent. The slow music following the cadenza section was, we thought, very good. The piece got a bit scrappy at the start of the final fast section, but did recover to a rousing finish. The band were happy with their performance, but annoyed about the small slips, particularly as they were problems that hadn’t happened in rehearsal.
The band then dispersed and returned to the hall for the results. It turned out that we were not in the top six, so waited to find out where we had come. When we found we were fifteenth we were dismayed – we thought the performance was good enough for the lower end of the top six, as did many other distinguished listeners we spoke to. The contesting gods are not being good to us this year, with good performances but poor results.
The full results of the contest were:
1. Brighouse & Rastrick, Professor David King, 16
2. Fairey (Geneva), Russell Gray, 7
3. Cory, Dr Robert Childs, 12
4. Beaumaris, Gwyn Evans, 4
5. Tredegar, Ian Porthouse, 5
6. Carlton Main Frickley Colliery, Phillip McCann, 17
7. Foden’s, Allan Withington, 20
8. Flowers, Paul Holland, 13
9. Hepworth, Michael Fowles, 10
10. Co-op Funeralcare, Dr Nicholas Childs, 3
11. Redbridge, Jeremy Wise, 2
12. Virtuosi GUS, John Berryman, 11
13. Reg Vardy, Ray Farr, 19
14. Exchange Communications Whitburn, Michael Bach, 18
15. Rothwell Temperance, David Roberts, 14
16. Pemberton Old Wigan DW, Mark Bentham, 15
17. EYMS, Alan Morrison, 6
18. Woodfalls, Gareth Pritchard, 8
19. Thoresby Colliery, Philip Harper, 1
20. Zone One, Richard Ward, 9
In true Rothwell spirit, the band didn’t let the result spoil their weekend and there was a group of 55 people who went out for dinner together on the Saturday evening. A good evening was had by all.
After sightseeing (or staying in bed) on Sunday morning the band left at 1pm for the trip back up the M1. Some of the kids on the bus (who had been great all weekend) were tired by the time we neared home and it took a bit of toy-swapping to quieten some of them down. This meant we arrived back at the bandroom to what sounded like “The Last Post” played on a toy trumpet!
A great weekend, a poor result. We are now working hard on our programme for Brass In Concert in about a month’s time. Hopefully our luck will change!
The band send their thanks to Jonathan Hammond for coming up from London and helping out the cornet section. We’ll see you back again for Brass in Concert.
Tim Sawyer
Percussion
25th October 2011
