Spring 2008 Southern Counties Amateur Bands Association

Hove Town Hall

Hove

6th April 2008

Shanklin Town Brass Band were represented by both the Senior and Youth Bands at this contest.  Each Band was required to play a March and an own choice Test Piece.  

Shanklin's Senior Band entered the 3rd section, playing Castell Caerdydd for the march and Four Cities Symphony for the test piece.  You may remember that this is the same Test Piece they played at the West of England Regional Championships that won them 5th place.  This time they came second, scoring 177 points for the March and 182 points for the Test Piece.    

As well as entering their own Section the Senior Band decided to test their musical abilities further by entering the 2nd Section.  Here they chose to play Punchinello, and scored 183 points.  The test piece they chose for this section was Dimensions, for which they also scored 183 points.  This placed the Band 5th in the Section, pleasing Musical Director Malcolm Lewis who said "I thought I'd made a mistake entering us for the higher section but the Band did me proud - we didn't come last and we didn't come second to last, we came 5th.  A good result"

In the Youth/3rd Section the Youth Band played Slaidburn and Stantonbury Festival.  They scored 179 points for each (beating the Senior Band in the March) and were the highest placed Youth Band.  James Sparks on repiano cornet won the Best Youth Instrumentalist and Musical Director Malcolm Lewis won the Best Youth Conductor's Prize.

2008 West of England Regional Championships

Riviera International Conference Centre

Torquay 

8 March 2008

Twenty five members of Shanklin Town Brass Band travelled to Torquay to take part in this competition.  They performed in the 4th Section, playing a piece written especially for the competition by Rodney Newton called Four Cities Symphony.  The competition was adjudicated by Peter Roberts and Rob Wiffin.

The draw for the running order was announced and STBB were drawn to play last...

Despite the flat acoustics in the Hall the Band managed to produce a crisp and dynamic sound.  Malcolm the MD felt they had played well enough, having heard all the competition play previously, to come 4th or 5th.

The results were announced, and a massive cheer was heard from the Island contingent when they were confirmed as 5th place.  The points showed that they were only two marks away from qualifying for the National Finals in Harrogate.

The top six positions were:

1. Brunel Brass, J. Winterflood, 7, 185
2. Wincanton Silver, B. Kelloway, 6, 183
3. Totnes, I. Wilkinson, 4, 182
4. Bream Silver, H. Cole, 17, 181
5. Shanklin Town Brass (Low), M. Lewis, 20, 180
6. Weymouth Concert Brass, A. Glynn, 11, 179