Australian Concert Bands

Hey All

How did the nats go? Who won etc?

Ive been watching a bit of the brass bands over the net, but its too jumpy so i closed it.

Cheers

The Main thing is we all had fun!

Great to hear!

But who won!?!??!!!

I can tell you the results for Open B Grade Section, so here goes.

Hymn Test Own Choice Stage March Total
Gold Coast WO 47 175 163 39 424
Sutherland PCYC 40 182 184 45 451


Music Selections were the following
Test Polednice, The Noon Witch, Dvorak.

Gold Coast, Hymn, Holy Holy Holy. OC, Banja Luka. March, Graf Zeplin
Sutherland PCYC, Hymn, On A Hymn Song Of Lowell Mason, OC, Orient Express. March, A Slavic Farewell.

Well done to Sutherland! I bet you guys are stoked!

Tell u what though...there is a huge difference in scores! Gold Coast started with a promising lead, then finished 27 points behind!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vndt0Vy8A

I know it's not a concert band becasue they don't march, the wimps, but this is the band I played with in Brisbane, Parramatta City. We are the first band, playing Colonel Bogey. If you watch the centre of the band you will see our baritone player trip over and hit the road. She was okay. I was actually belting the cymbals up the back.

Who is the second band in the clip?

i noticed that the drum major, she got out of step at the end while throwing her mace in the air!

The second band in the clip I do not know. They were a young band but in B Grade senior brass so they must have been okay.;

With all the hype about the brass competition in the last week, I feel like some accolades are missing for the concert bands.

I'd like to offer my congratulations to Queensland Wind Orchestra and Sutherland PCYC Concert Band who won their respective sections in A and B grade concert bands. Both bands played extremely well with a great deal of musicianship and attention to detail. I was most impressed with their choice of music and the strengths of the players involved.

Also congratulations to members of those bands, [articularly Brendan Toohey for winning both the open and junior concert champion of champions, to Chris Moran for a very solid musical performance in Open Trumpet (and a second placing ahead of the previous year's champion) and to the other members of QWAB and QWO (Fiona Dyne, Nadia Myers, Emmi Di and Anna Jacobson) who won the open oboe, piccolo, alto sax and french horn sections respectively.

Also to the QWO wind quintet for first place (they beat us by two points!) in the open quintet.

Also thankyou to Ms Moran of Sutherland PCYC for her generous offer of help to our band in Sydney in 2009. It is indeed much appreciated.

Nicole Molloy
Unley Concert Band

Concert bands are not wimps! At least not Unley Concert Band. We proudly marched at Nationals in Melbourne, and won but received no mention anywhere in official results.

We would love to march again but the powers that be make it very difficult sometimes...

Are there other concert bands out there that WANT to march in the parade of bands at nationals?

The wimp phrase was used to hopefully get the concert bands stirred up enopugh to want to march.

The NSW Band Association if approached would probably let the concert bands march.

I know for a fact that the marching next year will be held at the Royal Easter Show at the Olympic site. The idea is for the bands is to march through the showground while the show is on so there should be plenty of people watching. After the march all the bands mass in the middle of the main arena and put on a combined display with one of the guest adjudicators conducting. If we had concert bands involved it would certainly add colour to what is essentially a brass benefit.

Come on concert bands, approach the NSW Band Association, then we will see who are wimps or not.