2008 – Autumn Contest

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2008 – Autumn Contest

Horns Retain their Title

On Saturday the 18th October the band once again took part in the SCABA Autumn Contest held at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone.

Playing in the second section we were up against another 6 bands from the south of England. Our chosen contest piece this time around was Philip Sparke’s Music for a Festival preceded by the hymn “Maryton”.

It was this time last year that the band last played in competition (having spent the Spring recording our new CD), and many of the band were keen to get back on the contest stage in a bid for a coveted trophy.

However we had a slightly late start to contest rehearsals, due in part to Ian’s absence during the later part of the summer (see previous article), and together with the fact that several of our younger players were playing under contest conditions for the first time, we were a little unsure of what to expect.

Only being able to rehearse with guest percussion Ben Bishop from neighbouring BAE System Band during the preceding rehearsal evening had also done little to improve our expectations but we knew should we play the piece to the best of our ability we were in with a chance.

On the day we drew a playing position of 5th of the 7 bands and gathered for a warm up at 3:15pm where we could practice those tricky bits one last time before playing the piece before the adjudicator.

On stage both pieces started well and more importantly together but in a section that was judged to be of a very high standard by the day’s adjudicator Roy Sparkes, the band were just pipped to a trophy and came in 4th place, but were able to improve upon last years position with the hymn tune, achieving a very creditable 2nd place.

The band were however delighted by the awarding of the “Pip Hall Memorial Trophy” to the Horn section for the second year running. The retention of the trophy came as something of a surprise to the horn section but never the less was a very welcome one at the end of the day.

No doubt the Trombone section are worried that their record for section prizes is now under considerable threat !

Well done horns.

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