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Christmas Parade Weekend It was a hot, humid weekend for marching in Santa hats! The festivities started in Ashhurst on Saturday morning, where Feilding Brass led the parade through the streets to the local school. The bass drummer wasn't at all popular with the solo cornets when he tried to start the music again during a stretch of road with no spectators! They protested very loudly, so we waited until more people lined the street to begin again. Our musical director became ill during the night, so it was up to one of our percussionists, Tim Jones, to conduct the band on Sunday. He did a great job leading the band through the lunchtime concert in downtown Feilding. Lunchtime shoppers were entertained with many tunes including Hail Holy Queen, Light as Air, Surfin' Safari, Snoopy's Christmas and Jingle Bell Rock. The band was hoping to lead the Feilding Christmas parade in the afternoon, but as luck would have it, we were in 25th place. We ended up needing to stop a number of times to avoid marching into the float in front of us!  Feilding Christmas Parade Feilding Youth Brass - End of Year Concert Feilding Youth Brass produced a great evening of music on Monday the 5th of December, 2005. The group of 18 players performed a variety of music from TV theme tunes to Christmas carols. The concert opened with the theme from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The band played together well, with good intonation throughout most of the pieces. The solo item was Can You Feel The Love Tonight, played by Alison Grant. Alison played the tune beautifully and the band provided a well balanced accompaniment, which didn't overpower the soloist. Several of the pieces were arranged by the musical director, Peter Ellery. His son, Ben, also helped arrange the tune Surfin' Safari. This piece was performed with a lot of energy and good rhythmical passages. Feilding Youth Band followed the senior band's lead and finished the concert with an arrangement of Snoopy's Christmas, to the delight of the audience! The Feilding Youth Band should be proud of a great performance. We look forward to hearing more from them next year. Feilding Brass - Along Came Christmas II Feilding Brass performed their annual End of Year Concert in the Feilding Civic Centre on the 26th of November, 2005. The concert opened in darkness with Alan Fernie's arrangement of Ticket to Ride as the opening number. David Rodgers, on cornet, took centre stage for a delightful arrangement of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The main tune was in a swing style, with snippets of March of the Gladiators and Pop Goes the Weasel, heard from the soprano cornet, xylophone and horns. The band then played Midway March, a wonderfully energetic piece, which some incredibly difficult passages. Special mention must be made of our guest soprano cornet player, Matt Stenbo, who seemed to breeze through his part!  We've Only Just Begun Another highlight of the first half was Seven Wonders. A presentation had been put together with pictures from Bill Munns (http://www.billmunnsgallery.com/swgallery.html) depicting the seven wonders of the ancient world. Many audience members commented how great it was to connected the images with the different parts in the music. The second half of the concert opened with all the cornet players out in front of the band to perform Mexican Holiday.  Mexican Holiday For something completely different, UV lights were turned on halfway through the second half while 6 members from the band performed a choreographed routine to Axel F. They were dressed entirely in black, apart from white gloves, which showed all the movements under the lights. Soon it was time for the percussionist to perform out the front. Five percussionist performed the theme from Backdraft with the band accompanying. From all accounts it got quite loud! The concert was officially drawn to a close with Swingin' Kilts, a swing arrangement of Scotland the Brave. The audience wasn't quite ready to go home, so Feilding Brass played Havah Nagilah and Snoopy's Christmas as encores. Photos from the concert. Central Districts Competitions The brass band competitions for the Central Districts region was hosted by Feilding Brass last weekend (August 27-28, 2005). Nine bands performed in the events during the weekend. The Hymn/Sacred Item and Test Piece were played on Saturday, while the Street March and Concert Programme took place on Sunday. The Hymn was judged by the Musical Director of Nelson Brass, Mr Chris Lawton. He remarked that bands tended to lose their tone when playing quieter dynamic levels. The suggestion was made for Musical Directors to encourage bands to play more slow melodies to increase the standard of playing and the confidence of players. The Test Piece was judged by Champion tenor horn player, Mr Mike Ford. He commented that a good selection of pieces had been chosen by the bands and that one of the key factors to remember, was to convey a sense of style. According to the drill judges, a higher standard of marching was seen this year compared to other Central District competitions. A final summary was given by Mr Mike Ford, who stated that bands needed to remember "The Basics." The most important of these is counting. If every single player is counting, rather than relying on the "feel" of the piece, they will come in at the right place. An enjoyable weekend was had by all the bands that attended. A special thanks must be made to the organising committee, who made sure the whole weekend ran smoothly. Section 1 Winners
Section 2 Winners
Section 3 Winners
Champion Drum Major Steve Lawton, Feilding Brass Full results:
Feilding Brass Festival of Bands Feilding Brass (NZ) takes home a gold award in a hotly contested field of ten bands. Feilding Brass hosted its 12th Festival of Bands on Sunday June 12th in Feilding, New Zealand. The festival allows each band 30 minutes on stage and encourages the selection of diverse, entertaining, and challenging programmes. Awards of Gold, Silver or Bronze certificates are made based on the quality of the bands' performances in relation to their capability and to the difficulty of the music they choose. In addition, there are special awards for the best soloist and most entertaining band. In attendance this year were ten Brass and Wind bands from the lower North Island, under the attentive ear of this year's adjudicator, the outstanding brass bandsman, Kevin Jarrett. Attending the festival for the first time was the newly formed Bay City Concert Band from the Hawke's Bay. The band received a gold award for their programme which included a very tight and spectacular rendition of Jacob de Haan's 'Oregon'. The 6th band on stage, the Manawatu Concert Band, received the second gold award of the day and flautist Bronwyn Wildbore received the Best Soloist award for her rendition of the rapid 'Drunken Sailor', aptly arranged by the band's musical director Tracy Hammond. Feilding Brass, the host band under Peter Ellery, put together a 'two hour variety concert packed into 26.3(!) minutes'. Included was Goff Richards' Light as Air, in which Flugelhorn player Ian Stevens was awarded runner-up soloist for his part. In his comments at the conclusion of the festival, Kevin Jarrett made particular note of the poor intonation from all the bands, stating the old adage 'an out of tune note is a wrong note'. Kevin also noted that some of the bands struggled to maintain the concentration throughout their performance. On the positive side, the top bands demonstrated excellent dynamic contrast, and produced a consistent sound at all dynamics. These bands also selected programmes that contained a great variety of styles. Kevin also noted that New Zealand concert bands seem to get on and off stage much faster than their Australian counterparts! The big award of the day was the 'Most Entertaining Band' award, usually fought for between the 7th Battalion Band and Feilding Brass. However this year Feilding settled for second, and the most entertaining band was awarded to the Manawatu Concert Band, whose programme opened with Indian Fire by Mario Burki, a speculator composition that had the band members adding some spirited American Indian sounds, which thoroughly entertained Mr Jarrett. See the festival webpage for full results: First Published on www.4barsrest.com Relay for Life Palmerston North's Relay for Life was held at the College of Education last weekend. The 24-hour event raised $206,000 for the Cancer Society. Feilding Brass was proud to be able to participate in the event and performed on stage for an hour from 3pm. A wide range of music was performed, and included Tuxedo Junction, Clog Dance, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Salute to Elvis.  Feilding Brass at the Relay for Life Start Date for 2005 The first rehearsal for Feilding Brass for 2005 is: Wednesday, 2nd of February The first rehearsal for Feilding Youth Brass for 2005 is: Monday, 7th of February Carols by Candlelight, December 19 2004 This concert was well received by the many hundred of people that turned up to support Feilding Brass, Rotary and the local foodbank. After a slight mix-up with the advertised starting times, we were ready to play at 7:30pm. The night started with a half hour concert of energetic pieces and Christmas songs, including Thunderbirds, Instant Concert, Lightwalk and Winter Wonderland. Feilding Brass was then joined by Pauline Rowe, Karl Perigo and a local choir to encourage the audience to sing through the carols. Christmas Parade Day, December 12, 2004 The weather conditions this year made the lunchtime concert rather difficult. Even with the music pegged to the stands and feet firmly on stand legs, the wind managed to knock over numerous stands and send music flying! A good crowd gathered to listen and enjoyed the selection of music we played. A couple of hours later we donned santa hats and led the Christmas parade through the centre of Feilding. The wind was still causing issues, so our bass drummer was given plenty of space to pirouette during the parade! A huge crowd lined the street and cheered us on, which always seems to make the route seem a little shorter. |
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