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Re: European Championship

Hi All

As a participant this weekend I would like to offer a few points about th
e
contest, venue and playing.

A few decisions which I found mystifying;
1. Asking the composer of the test piece to adjudicate but not his own
piece - the afternoon session instead. I know Kevin Norbury very well, he
accompanied my father for many years and he played the organ at my sister
s
wedding accompanying my dismal trumpet playing. He is not the kind of guy
who is going to dictate to anybody about how it should be - he would have
offered a sensible balanced view.
2. They had the opportunity to site the adjudicators almost anywhere as t
he
hall was never more than 1/3 full, but no, they found a hole in the far w
all
which was the projection room and put them in there, where they had none
of
the halls acoustics and the sound entered through a muslin sheet draped o
ver
the front. (Which you could easily see through as a matter of interest -
I
went in there before the contest and waved to my band on stage) So they s
at,
in high temperatures in a room approx. 4m X 3m with a low ceiling while t
he
rest of us sat in one of the best auditoriums I have ever been in. I sat
alone, adjacent to the box which was almost as far from the bands as you
could get and it sounded like the band was playing at the end of a distan
t
tunnel. I would love to know how it sounded in the box.
3. We had real problems finding a rehearsal facility. No great help was
offered locally but a friend who works in Siemens in Munich put me in tou
ch
with the Regional Music Director who is in charge of 400 Brass and Wind
Bands in the region. He found us a room and sat in for our rehearsals. Th
e
point of this is that he was completely unaware that the event was on - h
e
said that many of the players locally would have attended had they known.
Great publicity and marketing ehh!!
4. Interesting contrast in opinion in the results also eg Brighouse 1st i
n
the morning, 8th out of 9 in the afternoon. CWS Glasgow last in the morni
ng,
2nd in the afternoon.
5. We spent =A312000 as a band getting to the contest but they wouldn't
officially let us into the hall on the day or to the concert in the eveni
ng.
To be fair the door staff were very accommodating during the day and most
who wanted to get in did, even if it meant going through the stage door a
nd
off the front of the stage.
6. A number of band reps thought that the level of organisation both befo
re
and on the day left a lot to be desired. The timings worked well and the
warm up room was fine but they asked the bands to turn up in their stage
uniforms and wanted us to carry our instruments in, ready to play, straig
ht
from the bus. You can imagine the response.

I didn't hear many bands but, based on the bands that I heard, the standa
rd
was pretty high across the board and many pundits normally with a ready
opinion said that it was wide open.

Jeremy


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