Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2016 NJH Music | [Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] fun and games in Australia
Report on Australian Nationals Goff Richards gave the A-grade Championship to Kew band (Melbourne, Victoria), displacing 2 A-grade New Zealand bands. It is good to have the "Fireman's helmet" return to Australia (The A-grade trophy is a mounted, silver-plated fireman's helmet, I guess in honour of the Melbourne Fire Brigade Band which, I am told, dominated the Nationals years ago). His comments were that the top three bands could easily compete at Championship level in the UK, however the lower end of A-grade reminded him of UK 1st and even 2nd division performances. About 400 people were kept waiting for about 50 minutes around midnight on Saturday night as a decision was made about a protest from 7 of the 14 competing bands regarding, amongst other issues, the eligibility of the registration of one player from Hawthorn band. The protest was upheld and that band was disqualified. I do not know the full details. I hope Chris Earl will provide full details for those interested on his "Australia's Band World" home page. If you want to experience something of the prevailing atmosphere, rent a copy of the good Australian film "Strictly Ballroom", and settle down to watch it with a few beers. It's a good movie about people who lose the artistic plot and become obsessed with petty detail and winning in amateur artistic competitions. Really, you will find many of the characters you know from Band Competitions in this movie. Fortunately the music was generally excellent, and offset the somewhat negative vibes otherwise prevailing. Goff Richards was a pleasure to play for and listen to, a real gentleman. We now have a recording of our performance, with his very positive and useful comments over-recorded. It was a disappointing year for Warringah: 8th in the Test (185) and last (179, ouch!) in the O/C. We were placed 11th I think. Ensembles and sols were yesterday (Easter Monday). Our first quartet (tuba, "Spritual Hazz Suite, Lennie Niehouse - Phil Anderton - BBb bass, Steve Packer - EEb bass, Steve Pell-eupho, John Saunders - eupho) was placed 4th in 8, and our quintet ("Morning Noon and Night Overture, arr S.Packer - Steve Packer - bass, John Saunders - eupho, Michelle Breglec - Eb tenor horn, Christina Saunders - flugel, Joanne Woosey - cornet ) was placed first - the only other competitor was a quintet from Kew, the band which won the championship! So we must be doing something right!! Speaking of Steve Packer, he was awarded 2nd in the EEb Bass to Sutherland's excellent tuba player, Matthew Pankhurst. The other disappointment is that the famous pub meeting never eventuated, but most of the internet banders did manage to catch up with each other. Cheers Phil Anderton Philip Anderton B.Optom Ph.D Ph: +612 9385 4375 School of Optometry Fax: +612 93136243 University of NSW Email: P.Anderton@xxxxxxxxxxx Sydney 2052 Web: http://www.optom.unsw.edu.au/ Australia -- unsubscribe or receive the list in digest form, mail a message of 'help' to listserver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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