News Page 2009

Avonbank In The Prizes Again.

Sunday 17th May saw Avonbank (Evesham) Brass Band take their now seemingly annual trip to down the motorway to enter the Weston-Super-mare Brass Band competition. For the first time the weather was far from kind! It rained ALL DAY!

Weston contest is an ‘Own Choice Test piece’ and we chose to play ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Paul Lovatt-Cooper. This is a very descriptive piece of music that describes a journey around the dark side of the moon and back. It was used as the National Area Qualifying Test Piece in 2008.

We found ourselves up against 6 other bands in the third section and due to a few ‘administration/personnel’ problems they requested to play last & that request was granted. Our percussionist, Tim had a very urgent pressing cultural engagement and he couldn’t arrive very early hence our request to play last. As per normal with the ever hyper-relaxed Tim, he turned up with just two minutes to spare, big grin on his face and snare drum in and. But even by his standards, this was close!

The band started the piece, which has a very tricky opening pretty well & the playing really settled and the band started to play even better. The piece culminates in a very loud impressive ending and we knew we had done well, but it was down the adjudicator!! 

Everyone held their breath when the results were announced.
First there was a prize for the best Bass Section and that was awarded to –    Avonbank (Evesham) Brass Band.

Then the main prizes….
3rd - Bath Spa Band
2nd – Avonbank (Evesham) Brass Band
1st – Crosskeys Silver Band

A great result! The four players who won the best basses award were, Kevin Hamby, Andy Mclure, Ken Smith and Alan Robbins.

A job well done with a special mention to young Tom Green making his contest debut on percussion.