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Re: North west Area 4th section

on 19/3/01 10:13 pm, Kevan Lomas at kevan.lomas@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> The concert band I play in enters a festival once a year...[with]...
> 1) Open adjudication, no box
> 2) Two adjudicators
> 3) One adjudicator dictates his comments into a tape recorder, the other
> gives a written comment sheet, both then confer to give final results.

Not only that, but the BASBWE Concert Band Festival to which Kevan is
referring uses an agreed and published set of criteria to differentiate
between the awards given, and the pool of British adjudicators have all been
trained in the consistent application of those criteria (although the
occasional foreign guests have not always been).

Whilst the Concert Band Festival is not as 'competitive' in the sense that
multiple bands may win a gold award (or silver, bronze, certificate or
nowt), the sense of friendly rivalry or competitive spirit experienced by
bands familiar to the Manchester Finals is not far off that felt at a brass
band contest, and there is never any doubt about the 'winning' band and
their sense of accomplishment in becoming so.

The programmes are own-choice, so the audience is usually quite good (at the
Finals at any rate) and the standard of repertoire can be very high, and is
largely British music written in the last twenty years - you would never get
a 'Moor of Venice' for example.

> I am aware that this system would probably not translate well to Brass Band
> circles but it does show that there is another way.

Perhaps, but the BASBWE approach is proving extremely popular, with entries
and audience attendances up year-on-year for some time, the opposite trend
to the brass band world.  It is also a world-wide format and British
Ensembles have gone on to the World Association Festivals in Tokyo, Austria
and the US in recent years, where the standard is even higher.

The existing brass band approach to both contests and concerts alike is
thoroughly stagnant, and unpopular with band members and audiences alike.  A
rethink is required before the myriad of leisure pursuits available in the
21st century turns us into a historical footnote.

Cheers
Mac

ps - Onto my fifth consecutive BASBWE finals this year - see you there!

---
Colin McDonald
Musical Director - University of Warwick Brass Band


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