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End of Another Busy Christmas!
Monday 22nd saw the last Christmas engagement for the band in the 2008 season. The band has played approximately 28 concerts in December (and the end of November as well!). This year has seen the band play in churches, schools, fates, switching on of lights, old peoples homes and many other locations in the Vale, Cardiff and Bridgend.
Looking Forward to 2009
The band are now looking forward to a few days off before returning to rehearsal on the 5th January. Next year promises to be even more exciting than 2008. The band will be recording a CD in January and the Spring Concert will see its launch. At Easter the band will be travelling to Scotland for a tour hosted by the Dalmellington Band. If that is not enough, after securing the runners up spot in the Welsh League for 2008, the band has a lot of work to do on the contesting front to see if we can go one better in 2009.
Merry Christmas everyone and see you in 2009!!
1st Section Runners Up 2008
With another good performance securing a top three spot in Treorchy on Saturday, the band has been awarded the runner's up cup for the Welsh League in the 1st Section.
This is a great result after the year has seen the band say goodbye to some members as well as hello to some fresh faces as well as hello again one or two returning members!
It is a reflection of the hard work undertaken by all involved and hopefully an indication of things to come.
Now for a well earned rest ...with only 20 odd Christmas engagements, preparation for the CD recording in the New Year, practising Pentacle for the Areas, sorting out the tour to Scotland at Easter.... Did I say a well earned rest!!!
Bryn At the Football
As part of the various engagements the band undertake in the year, they are the official band for the Welsh FA. At the last match the band were joined in the anthem by Bryn Terfel.
After posing with Nicole Cook and her gold medal, Cam jumped at the chance of adding another famous face to his photo collection!
70th Annual Concert
The band held a very successful event to celebrate the 70th Annual Concert.
Although there were no takers for the Maestro competion the audience were not disappointed by the virtuosic display by the interationally renowned Tuba Soloist Steve Skyes. He entertained the audience (and the Band) with both spectacular fast pieces and quite beautiful slow melodic numbers.
Not to be out done, as well as accommpanying Steve, the band themselves played an enjoyable and varied programme.
At the end of the evening a number of people may well have discovered a side to the Tuba that they never knew existed!
St. Athan in the Top 200!
As an update to the last posting of 154 in the world rankings, the band has improved to 150 after 2nd in Ammanford.
Nicole Cook Homecoming Party
30th August this year saw one of the most unusual events the Band has ever played at - in fact its true to say that a similar event had never taken place in Wales - ever!
We were asked to play at the homecoming party of Wales' first ever female Gold Medal Olympian Nicole Cook.
Thousands Turn Out to Celebrate
So, on what was probably the only sunny day in the whole of August, a good twelve of us were positioned on the top deck of an antique open top bus, replete with Welsh Flags and Nicole's family, playing Congratulations (with even more fervour than the most ardent Cliff fan) to the assembled rural Vale and Several thousand well-wishers.
Things went well until a pothole took out Lewis' upper teeth and the over hanging branches which give Broughton its unique and quirky atmosphere took off Claire's head and left Derrick with a distincly green hair do!
Conducting the Band
Sticking plaster in place, it was back to the marquee where the boys from Bridgend Male Choir were raising the tent pegs before the Band ended the proceedings with some stirring and uplifting Bernearts arrangements!
Such was the emotion that Nicole herself came to conduct the Band.
Are you Sure you Don't Want to Swap
Despite an intense moment of instruction from Cameron, Nicole could not be persuaded to swap her gold medal for his tenor horn.
Claire, Laura and David played a short fanfare before Nicole unveiled a ceremonial plaque at the Village Hall, then it was back on your bike to the pub.
Well done Nicole a smile and an autograph for everyone - and well done to the Band too. Roll on 2012 - we'll be available for that party too - shall we put it in our diaries now?
St Athan at the Eisteddfod
The band took its annual trip to the National Eisteddfod on Sunday 3rd August. The event this year is sited on Pontcanna Fields in Cardiff so for once there was no long bus trip to be made!!
Against a sparse, but very strong field, the band took 2nd prize on the day from adjudicator Lloyd Landry.
The band's 20 minutes entertainment programme opened with Bleinheim Flourishes by James Curnow, then there was a superb rendition of "Virtuosity" by the band's principal cornet player, Claire Bourne followed by the etherial arrangement of John Rutter's "A Gaelic Blessing" followed by a high spirited performance of Serenata arranged by Mark Freeh and finishing with a rousing performance of the finale from Symphony No 4 by P I Tchaikovsky.
Congratulations to Tredegar Town Band who were in commanding form on the day and took 1st prize by 5 clear points.
St David's Hall Concert
The band took part in the "Bless 'em All" concert in St. David's Hall. The concert was hosted by Stan Stennett and a number of acts took the stage to help 'bring back those wartime & civvy street memories'!
Sunset
During the course of the 2nd half of the concert the band brought down the house with a moving performance of "Sunset" featuring Claire Bourne and Sarah Vice on cornets.
The band finished the second half with a rousing rendition of "Marches On Parade" featuring the members of the cast for the final section of "Land of Hope & Glory".
RAF Voluntary Massed Band Concert
19 players from the band travelled to RAF Cosford early Saturday morning to participate in the massed band concert event. We arrived at Cosford in time for a quick lunch and then it was straight into rehearsals for the concert on Sunday. In fact, quick meals seemed to be the order of the day as we checked into our rooms and tried to get tea in one hour! However, the true professionals that we are, we made it back for rehearsal complete with indigestion for another two hours of rehearsals to run the programme.
Saturday we had entertainment laid on for us in the Sergeant’s Mess, not the Squadronaires this time but a Horse Racing Night. Those of us who made the 1 ½ mile trek were rewarded with cheap beer (£4.80 a round!) and a spectacular winning streak on the horses that lasted until the bar shut when we gambled everything on one horse and lost! On the return leg from the Sergeant’s Mess we picked up the rest of the girlies from Jax Club where serious amounts of socialising had taken place and we believe Rose taught everyone how to play crib whilst Alice was reliably lining up the shots in preparation for the next morning’s hangover. Alan Lewis spent his time inviting the entire bar to “come and stay at our house” all because they wanted to see where Gavin and Stacey live – I’m not entirely sure if Barry Island is ready for such an influx of clarinettists this Summer!
The Day Arrives with Snow!
Sunday morning inevitably started with bleary eyes and a hangover, all until we looked at the window to see a blanket of snow outside. The heat in the bandroom is nothing compared to the heat in the blocks at Cosford and the thought crossed many minds to roll in the snow outside to cool off – perhaps it was just as well we had those hangovers after all! Breakfast was served in the Junior Ranks Mess and all other than our Bandmaster made it to breakfast – even if John did get his as a takeaway. The look on the trumpet player from RAF Akrotiri’s face when Rose said she was looking for a single gentleman in the middle of the men’s block was a scream as he instantly declared he was available for entertaining any of the 7 ladies. It took all of Rose’s diplomacy to let him down gently!
With time for a quick photo in the snow wearing our new tour t-shirts we headed off to Symphony Hall.
Last Rehersal!
The stage manager ran us all through our paces again, and again and again….. Then we headed back on stage for a quick (?) 4 hour rehearsal before heading up to level 4 for tea in style. All into uniforms, shoes polished, shirts personally ironed by Rose, epaulettes fitted, belts adorned, hair scraped back, fringes adjusted, Kay had time to just quickly trim hers and ties smartly done – we then looked like a bunch of bus drivers – except for Alan Lewis who seriously considered a quick shift as a security guard. Time for more photos and last minute touching up, Alice did a great audition for the next Star Trek movie with the biggest plasters imaginable covering her studs, but we were finally ready for the off.
First Half
The concert kicked off wit h the most spectacular rendition of the National Anthem with massed band of 142 (we know because Rose counted us all on Saturday afternoon) and a very talented young organist from the Birmingham Conservatoire and 6 VBIs plying fanfare trumpets up in the choir stalls. Following on from that we headed into safer territory with the RAF Regiment March Holyrood followed by Suppe’s Light Cavalry both directed by Jon Teague from Cosford Band. Then it was the first feature of the evening and Claire got up to join 6 other cornet players to play The Three Jolly Airmen. At this point a Pipe Band lead by the pipers from RAF Halton took the stage and quite literally electrified the theatre with a superb display. Throughout the evening Jim Bowen acted as compere and quite literally had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand, although I’m not quite sure how he got away with the shearing the sheep joke! Next we were in familiar hands when our own Alan Bourne came onto stage for the first time and we played John Williams’ highly emotive music from the film Saving Private Ryan, the band rewarded Alan’s persistence with some of the best playing all night with spine tingling piano sections that can only be achieved with the breath of sound that a band that size can give. Next it was RAF Wyton’s turn to shine and they turned to their own VBI Graham Sheldon and their percussionist come crooner Brad Appleby who came out to the front to thrill the ladies in the audience with Can’t Take That Away From Me. Next James Gray from RAF Kinloss returned to the helm to orchestrate the band’s Great Escape, where all our players finally got to play some music that we knew – hurrah! Our featured soloist for the evening was Belinda Evans, a runner up in the Maria contest on tv recently, who was quite simply sublime. With one of the smoothest soprano voices I have ever heard live she absolutely blew us away with a set including Gershwin and the operatic aria O Mio Babino Caro. To conclude the first half the band was led by Dave Jackson to play Children of Sanchez featuring Matt the principal trumpet player from Halton Band on Flugel Horn.
Second Half
The second half ran straight on with the Dambusters and then the pipes returned to stage once more. Then Michael Pegram from RAF Holton took to the stage and directed the band through Clarinet Candy featuring 7 Clarinettists who displayed the virtuosic capabilities of the instrument. The principal Clarinet player from RAF Wyton was on form all evening and also played a cadenza in the Suppe in the fist half. Time then to return to the leadership of Graham Sheldon and the band played an absolute gem of an arrangement of a selection from the stage show Chicago, much embellished by Graham’s wobbly belly trick! Belinda Evans joined with the band in this half to sing a war song tribute including The Army, The Navy and The Airforce, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square and The White Cliffs of Dover all arranged and conducted by Michael Pegram. Jim Adair flew all the way from RAF Akotiri in Cyprus and conducted The Luftwaffe March from “The Battle of Britain” and managed the massed band with incredible nerve given that his band in Cyprus is somewhat smaller in number! Time then to welcome back the newest of the VBIs in Tom Milford who leads the band in a quite literally roaring piece (we all had to mimic jungle animals at one point!) featuring our own Flautist Joyce along with 2 others to perform a lengthy and challenging Flute break in the middle. The finale arrived and we were really pleased to see Alan Bourne back to lead us through the final three pieces. Highland Cathedral featuring organ, fanfare trumpets, pipers and massed band was an awesome sight and gave Claire and Sarah a chance to disappear backstage and on up to level 4 where we added to the display with Paul from RAF Cosford band to play the bugle call in the Sunset whilst members of the RAF Regiment ceremonially lowered the flag with precision timing.
Standing Ovation
Then to conclude the concert the band finished with the RAF March Past and the audience rewarded us all with a standing ovation and a truly warm and genuine applause. A challenging event to stage by the Voluntary Band Association but what a show to celebrate 90 years of the RAF and also 90 years of Voluntary banding. Now we just need to load the bus to get home…
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