Now the dust has settled on an eventful weekend of banding let’s take a moment to reflect on what just happened.
The West of England regional finals are always a great event where bands throughout the region come together in Torquay to compete but also take the opportunity to soak up the wonderful atmosphere and meet up with old banding buddies.
As has been said many times, making music is an art form rather than a science, so the results will be down to the opinions of the adjudicators on that day. Up and down the country though, where bands have not done as well as expected there will be accusations that the adjudicators got it wrong but for those that did well, then the adjudicators are beyond reproach and were of course spot on.
For Verwood Concert Brass having had Verwood Town Band compete in the 4th Section and Verwood Concert Brass Band compete in the Championship Section and met with different outcomes, then all the more important, as per our pre contest Facebook post, to meet triumph and disaster with equal good grace.
For Verwood Town Band, yes being 12th out of 20 bands was disappointing compared to 5th place last year but it was far from being a disaster. Everyone agreed that the band played really well, including online brass band magazine, 4BarsRest, who in its reckoning had put the band in 5th place. However, the adjudicators were of the view that on this occasion 11 bands played this particular test piece just that bit better or more in line with their interpretation of how the piece should be played, and that’s their prerogative.
Does that mean Verwood Town Band is not such a good band? Not a jot. It is well recognised that under the direction of Musical Director, Emma Button, the band has improved enormously and continues to do so. In other contests the band has beaten 3rd Section and even a 2nd Section band, so knows it can mix it with higher graded bands. What’s more the band will still head to next year’s finals in a strong position. Based on provisional grading points it will be in joint 5th place – being a top quartile band is no bad place to be!
Most importantly Verwood Town Band is a happy band and will return to the band room, whilst seeing what can be learned from the adjudicators comments, will be eager to get ready for our busy Spring and Summer concert schedule, to entertain very appreciative audiences.
For Verwood Concert Brass Band, whether the jubilant celebrations of coming 3rd in the Championship Section met the ‘good grace of triumph’ criteria may be open to some debate, for those not familiar with the brass band world one may wonder why coming 3rd, which in itself is a very good result, did meet with such triumphant jubilation – it was like they had come first.
Here’s the back story. Verwood Concert Brass Band gained promotion to the Championship Section only a year ago and at last year’s regional contest they came 9th out of 13 bands. Not a bad result but with the bottom two bands being demoted to the 1st Section, the band entered this year’s contest in 13th position out of 14 bands. Thus, another bottom half result this year could well have seen Verwood Concert Brass demoted.
The challenge in the Championship Section is that all bands are excellent but some are more excellent than others. There are six bands, most with a long history of being a Championship band, conducted by highly renowned musical directors and who are ranked in the top 60 of the best brass bands in the world, with Flowers band being ranked 5th and who has won the contest for the last five consecutive years. Bear in mind Verwood is currently ranked 116th in the world.
So it is, that normally, the contest is of two halves. These top bands vie for the top six finishing spots with the other bands striving to have done enough to avoid demotion for another year.
Hopefully readers will therefore appreciate the significance of Verwood Concert Brass being placed third. Not only did it make history for this being the band’s best ever result in its 153 year existence, it meant that it had been placed higher than four of the top six bands including the 5th ranked band in the world, Flowers, who came 4th and two others ranked 33rd and 37th in the world. It also meant remaining in the Championship Section for at least another year.
With all good grace, the result does not overnight make Verwood Concert Brass Band a better band than Flowers or any of the other bands in the Championship Section. But on that Sunday evening in Torquay it showed that Musical Director, Kevin Smith, was equally as adept at interpreting all of those dots and markings on the musical score and marshalling the players to produce the sound he wanted, and the players were up to the task of delivering what was required of them under the pressure of a contest, to give a quality performance on par with the very best in the business and which clearly met the favour of the adjudicators on this occasion. Every contest will produce different results but this was Verwood’s moment so hence the jubilation but one they can be capable of repeating.
Thank you to all that have praised the band’s performance which has come from many quarters including post contest commentary from 4BarsRest which said;
Verwood Delight
“Despite just missing out on what would also have been a debut Albert Hall appearance, there was no mistaking the collective joy shown by Verwood Concert Brass, who produced a fine account of [the test piece ‘Pageantry’ by Herbert Howells] to end third, led by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra bass trombonist Kevin Smith. Their opening and closing movements were perhaps the best of the day, with nervousness and fragility just costing them in the 'Cortege' [the middle movement]”.
Let us not forget though that quality does not happen by accident, it takes a lot of time and effort from all concerned but made all the easier by the friendly atmosphere that exists in the band room. So just like Verwood Town Band, it will be back to preparations for entertaining audiences over the Spring and Summer season albeit with an extra sense of achievement and pride.
From all at Verwood Concert Brass we thank the organisers of the event and congratulate all the bands that competed over the weekend, plus those who met or exceeded their expectations. We extend our commiserations to those that might have hoped for better placings, but importantly carry on enjoying making music and your time may well come. Also we wish the best of luck to all the winning West of England bands that will represent the region at the national finals later in the year.
