West Lothian Schools Brass Band
The band were invited to participate in Brass Band Day 2008, held at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow on Sunday 20th April.
The day consisted of a series of concerts and master classes beginning at 1:00 pm with the Academy Brass conducted by Bryan Allen, and featuring a programme of music spanning six centuries.
At 2:15 pm there was a short performance from the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland, conducted by Richard Evans. This was a chance to hear the band before they head of on their tour of Japan in July.
At 3:30 pm it was the turn of Scotia Brass to entertain the audience in the Academy Concert Hall. Scotia Brass are an ‘all-star’ band made up of players from the Salvation Army, conducted by Allan Ramsay and featuring James Gourlay on tuba.
At 5:00pm it was West Lothian Schools Brass Band’s turn to take to the stage in the Concert Hall under the direction of Nigel Boddice MBE. This session featured star percussionist, Simone Rebello and took the format of a workshop offering an insight into working with a youth band.
Brass Band Day 2008
At the Royal Scotish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow
West Lothian Schools Brass Band at the RSAMD Brass Day 2008
The band began by entertaining the audience with the lively Mexican influenced Malaguena, originally the sixth movement of the Suite Andalucia by Ernesto Lecuona, who also provided it with Spanish lyrics. It was accompanied by shrieks, whoops and dancing from the band!
It was then time for Simone Rebello to join the band, and she discussed, at length, the intricacies of performing with a youth band, before treating us to a marimba solo.
The band then performed ‘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 Simone Rebello on Xylophone, although James did manage to correctly find the triangle for the final note!
‘Flying Mallets’ with our ‘soloist’ struggling to identify the correct item of percussion
It was then time for the band to be joined by guest euphonium soloist, David Thornton. Together they performed ‘Peace’ by John Golland.
After that, there was only time for a finale from the whole band which was ‘Vitae Lux’ written by Frode Alnaes and arranged by Aagaard-Nilsen.
Finally - the correct percussion is identified
At 6:30 pm, it was time for the Kirkintilloch Band to perform, previewing the test piece from their upcoming appearance t the European Brass Band Championships in Norway.
At 8:00 pm it was the turn of newly crowned 2008 Scottish Champions, Whitburn Band, to take to the stage under the baton of Andrew Duncan.
And that brought the 2008 RSAMD Brass Day to a close, but not before we were informed of cutbacks and organisational changes which are planned at the RSAMD, which may put days like this under threat. The RSAMD Brass Day has become an important part of the Scottish Brass Band calendar, and it would be terrible to think that this could have been the last such event
