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Silver Award for our Juniors!
Ian Taylor conducted our Junior Band in the National Youth Championships in Manchester on Sunday 13th April and after playing 14th of 14 bands he was thrilled to pick up a merited Silver Award in reward for the first class performance by the band, at their first ever appearance in the nationals. Quite a number of parents and band officials travelled with the juniors to the event and they were all extremely proud of our youngsters. Unfortunately, the event organisers do not issue points for each band’s performances so we don’t actually know where our band was placed but only four bands received the top gold awards and on the official results listing we were the next listed band and on that basis we think we were 5th, but if not 5th on our own, we must have been 5th equal (confused – join the club !). We had a great weekend with the kids, who behaved extremely well and gave us no concerns whatsoever during our trip. We travelled to our favourite hotel (Doric Hotel in Blackpool) on Saturday 12th April and the kids enjoyed the great facilities, including swimming pool, jacuzzi, steam rooms and games rooms before bopping the night away at a disco. They are a good team and they enjoy each other’s company and that makes the official’s tasks so much easier. We needed a bus and a mini-bus to take our players and supporters to the event and our very sincere thanks to William Paterson (father of tuba player – Cameron) for providing the mini-bus and driving it for us during the trip. The band played four pieces during their performance in Manchester: the march ‘Walkabout’, Horn Solo ‘The lark in the clear air’, which featured David McLean who, once again, put in a beautiful performance. This was followed by ‘Impresario’ Overture and the very demanding Test-Piece ‘Dimensions’, by Peter Graham. They played to a packed house and received wonderful applause from a very appreciative audience and that made the trip so worthwhile for our kids and has made them determined to return next year to try for a gold award ….. who knows what the future holds ! Our supporters, who heard a couple of the other bands, noted that the winning band had over 50 players and this was the case for a number of the other bands. Our band had 27 players and produced a good quality sound, but our organisers have to address the issue of trying to increase the size of our junior band and we know that, with tutors like Ian Taylor, Hugh Johnstone MBE and others, if we can increase the quantity of players, we can also increase the quality from those players and that is our main aim for the future development of Dalmellington Junior Band. Ian Taylor, Hugh Johnstone and our kids worked their socks off for weeks prior to their trip to Manchester and they made us extremely proud with a quality performance and they deserve to be high up on our list for Dalmellington Band’s future priorities! The Manchester trip was made possible because of the support given by the junior band parents and as always, our Patrons gave tremendous financial support, which greatly assisted the band to fund the substantial costs of the trip. Our very sincere thanks to everyone for giving our youngsters the chance of a lifetime!
Read more: “Our trip to the Finals in Manchester” by Ashley Dick and Becky Mitchell |