SBBA Scottish Youth Brass Band Championships 2007

It was almost a case of ‘déjà vu’ at the SBBA Scottish Youth Brass Band Championships on Sunday 25th November. Once again, the premier section was contested by Aberdeen City Youth Band conducted by Eric Kidd, Moray Concert Brass conducted by Glenn Munro and West Lothian Schools Brass Band coducted, as ever, by Nigel Boddice MBE. The only obvious difference was the venue. The contest had moved from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to the magnificent Perth Concert Hall.

The Youth Contests are held alongside the Scottish Open Brass Band Championship, the Scottish Challenge Shield and the Scottish Challenge Cup. In previous years in Glasgow, the contests ran simultaneously in different halls, but by splitting the event over two days, the youth bands had the magnificent main auditorium at their disposal which certainly made life much easier for the premier section bands who struggled in previous years to squeeze onto the stages in the smaller halls.

The premier section bands were required to perform an own choice programme not exceeding 25 minutes. The adjudicators were Michael Fowles and Ian Smith.

Moray Concert Brass were drawn number one, and they certainly needed the additional space offered by the magnificent Perth auditorium. I don’t think I’ve seen as many musicians on stage at any one time! An unusual programme coupled with some uncertainty in the execution resulted in Moray Concert Brass receiving a silver award and third place.

Next on stage were West Lothian Schools Brass Band. The combination of a varied programme and an entertaining delivery bode well for the bands attempt to retain their Scottish Youth Championship title and make it a hat trick of wins. The band kicked off their title defence in fine form with ‘Malaguena’. This was followed by the hauntingly beautiful ‘Scarlet Ribbons’, written by Jack Segal, arranged by Andy Duncan and performed beautifully by the band’s Principal Cornet, Susannah Downs accompanied by Ruth Glenn (normally principal horn player) on piano. Picking up the tempo once again, the third item in the band’s programme was Pirates of the Caribbean. Slowing things down once again, it was time for us to appreciate the magnificent playing of the band’s Principal Trombone, Ross Learmonth, who performed the wonderful ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’, written by Dave Mann & Bob Hilliard, and arranged by Alan Fernie. To lighten the mood somewhat, the band then gave a performance of ‘Flying Mallets’ featuring, so we were lead to believe, a Triangle solo by one of the trombone players, James Farrell, who unfortunately didn’t seem to be able to correctly identify said triangle! In actual fact, the piece featured the magnificent talents of percussionist Calum Gardner on Xylophone, although James did manage to correctly find the triangle for the final note! It was back to serious business for the band’s final piece - ‘Vitae Lux’ composed by Frode Alnaes and arranged by Norwegian composer Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen. If the applause was anything to go by, then this performance was a winner, but there was still the small matter of Aberdeen City Youth Band, who were drawn third.

Aberdeen City Youth played an excellent and varied programme making best use of their star euphonium player, Richard Kidd, and rather surprisingly , Whitburn Band’s Scott Forrest on soprano cornet.

After all the bands had played, the stage was reset for a short concert featuring the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland conducted by Richard Evans. They played a good selection of music to publicise and raise funds for their planned trip touring Japan in 2008. Their fundraising was substantially enhanced when the SBBA gave them a cheque for £1000 at the conclusion of their short concert programme.

Finally, the stage was set for the announcement of the results.

As previously stated, Moray Concert Brass were presented with a Silver Award. Both Aberdeen City Youth and West Lothian Schools received Gold Awards. This obviously placed Moray Concert Brass in third place. There was a tremendous atmosphere of anticipation in the hall until it was announced that second place went to Aberdeen City Youth Band, and a huge cheer went up when West Lothian Schools Brass Band were confirmed in first place, retaining their Scottish Youth Championship title for the third consecutive year.

The celebrations by the band members had to be seen to be believed and they were joined by their MD Nigel Boddice. Congratulations to both band members and MD on another excellent performance.