2005 New Zealand National Championships

Contest retrospective

4BR looks back at a fine week of banding in windy Wellington where Gothenburg took the top honours at the 125th New Zealand National Championships.

Gothenburg Brass Band: Winners Section A

They call the capital city of New Zealand, ‘Windy Wellington', and up until the mid 1980's by all accounts the main streets in the city centre still had rope balustrades up and down each side of the thoroughfares so that people could hang on and still walk to work when the wind blowing up through the Cook Straights was at its height. It was, as my grandmother used to say - not a place where you could wear a hat with pride. 

There is of course some parallel with Chicago in Illinois to that effect, but unlike that city, which stands out for miles around like bar graphs on an accountant's financial report amid the unremitting flatness of the Great Plains, Wellington is hemmed in by the beauty of its surroundings. It is a very pretty place to visit, even if getting there can be a bit of a hair-raising experience.

Because of that wind (and fog), flying into the Capital can be a real white knuckle ride, with stories regaled to 4BR of times in the not too distant past when planes approached the runway at Wellington International airport at a 90 degree angle, with passengers on the starboard side able to see straight down the tarmac approach! It is though, well worth the clenched buttocks and bitten fingernails when you get there.

Wellington was a most welcoming host for the 125th New Zealand National Championships. It is a prosperous city; its wealth based on its large port, and as the central political centre for the country it boosts a great number of finely built civic amenities, good road communications and sense of pride in its position as the capital city.

The development of Wellington, unlike Auckland, which is the country's biggest city, has not been one of urban sprawl, as the surrounding mountains hem the population into a compact area the size roughly of Cardiff. The relative prosperity of its inhabitants means that there are a whole host of beautifully designed houses hugging the mountain tops as well as within the city itself, where the traditional early 1900 wooden veranda based houses are still well maintained and have not been knocked away to be replaced by the type of ‘legoland' housing estates so beloved of urban town planners in the UK.

Wellington offers the visitor a great deal – from the architecture, to the museums, the Basin Reserve cricket ground to the rugby stadium, and is without doubt one of the nicest places 4BR has visited for a brass band contest.

The people are warm and welcoming, generous, yet pragmatic. An example of this pragmatism was to be seen in the venue itself for the Contest – the Michael Fowler Centre, which was based right in the centre of the city and which was built to adjoin the existing Victorian Town Hall.

Such was the expense envisaged in extending that fine building to meet 21st century demands, that the new, modern centre was umbilically connected to the structure by the means of clever walkways. If that was not pragmatic enough, the main concert hall in the Centre was in fact a slightly reduced facsimile of the main concert hall found in Christchurch on the South Island.  That was built some 15 years before this one in Wellington, and so, as New Zealanders have a rich cultural heritage with the Scots, a sensible financial compromise of copying a good working structure was seen to be better value than a brand new specially designed, overtly expensive concert hall. 

New Zealand therefore has two concert halls of very nearly the exact same shape, size and design as each other in two different cities on two different islands. It makes sense doesn't it – although you couldn't quite see it happening in Britain could you?   

With the base for the 125th Championships therefore spanning over 100 years in time and architecture, it provided an ideal venue for a very enjoyable week of events.

National Solo Championships:

Because of the bad weather (the airport was bound in impenetrable fog for three days before the contest), many bands couldn't make it into the city in time for a number of their players to take part in the traditional curtain raisers of the National Solo Championships, which take place a couple of days before the main brass band contests.

That meant that there were reduced numbers in many of the individual and ensemble events this year, but it was still amazing to report that even in the 21st century, solo playing in New Zealand is still going strong, and the standard is very impressive indeed.

Sarah Walker: Winner - Open Amateur Cornet

Some of the solo playing in particular was breathtaking – from the winner of the Open Amateur Cornet, Sarah Walker, through to the doyen of New Zealand soloists Trevor Bremner, who won the prestigious Open Slow Melody event and the almost freakish brilliance of the BBb tuba champion, Philip Johnston, who drew a crowd of over 50 people into a tiny annexe room in the Town Hall to listen to his amazing playing.

The climax of finding the best soloist from all thirteen individual categories took place on the Thursday night at the Ilott Theatre in the Town Hall, where the Besson sponsored ‘Open Champion of Champions' event took place.

Alan Morrison [left] and Trevor Bremner [winner: Open Slow Melody]

Here the 13 individual winners from the soprano cornet through to the baritone and basses, and even the percussion and a special ‘veterans' section took to the stage to perform their chosen solo in front of an audience of over 150 people and three adjudicators, who included the Chief Adjudicator for the Championships as a whole, Alan Morrison. The standard was very good indeed from nearly all the competitors and the three main prizewinners were outstanding.

The audience were perhaps a touch disappointed that Mr Johnston and his ‘Sparky the magic tuba' didn't win (he is without doubt the best BBb playing in the world, with a technique David Thornton would be proud of and a low tuba sound the QE 2 couldn't better), but the winner, Mason Elliott, the gifted flugel player of the Dalewool Auckland Band was on superb form and deserved the prize ahead of the fine tenor horn player Mike Ford. 

Even though it was a joy to listen to the standard of the very best solo players here, the fact that the New Zealanders take it so seriously is something of a handicap to them in banding terms.  

The selection of solos for the competitors to play is invariable dated and conservative in fashion and has over the years promoted a style of playing that also feels dated and conservative by UK standards. Too many of the players are unable or willing possibly to play without vibrato, whilst nearly all produce a vibrato that is ‘bottom' led. ie starts under the natural pitch of the note and so leads to a dull and sombre tone. 

Allied to this is a rather prosaic sense of style, small sound and woolly note production – facets of playing that were common in Britain 25 years or more ago before so called ‘proper teaching' techniques were introduced to younger players in colleges and conservatoires from professional teachers.   When this is brought to the brass band as a whole, you tend to get rather small sounding, dull timbre ensembles as a result.

To be fair not all the bands are like this – the best two or three are much more British in style, whilst others such as the Pelurous Trust Wellington Brass under David Chaulk is a band that has certainly changed its sound for the better in a short space of time.

Last year, Dr Robert Childs spoke of the need for players here to try and encompass new material to perform as it would only be of benefit to them as players in the future, and whilst there are signs that some have done this, there is still a way to go before New Zealand players fully accept that this is the way forward. When they do, all of their bands will benefit for sure. 

Street March:

The other amazing aspect of the Championships here is of course the traditional ‘Street March' which took place on the hot streets on the morning of the main contest for the bands – a day where a few hours later, after a half mile march in polyester jackets, hats, gloves and marching ranks the Grenadier Guards would have been proud of, the Grade A Bands had to tackle the difficulties of ‘St. Magnus'.

Street March: NZ Community Trusts Woolston Brass

It is a great event, with just about all the competing bands taking part. Yorkshire Co-op and Gothenburg were excused duties (most probably on the grounds that the Swedes haven't really marched to anything in their long history as a nation, and as Yorkshire were busy entertaining the crowds in the nearest shopping mall with a smashing selection of marches and hymn tunes). It all resulted in a colourful spectacle with a crowd of well over five thousand at least lining the streets to hear the bands play a march of their own choice and to marvel at the precision of the quick step. They do it rather well.

That just left the contests themselves, with Grades ranging from A to D, and with the top three sections having to perform a test piece, own choice selection and a hymn tune to make up a three legged contest.

Section B-D: 

In the lower sections (B – D) the standard was pretty good and related just about to what you would expect to hear in the UK in Sections One to Four, although the B Grade was at the bottom end of the First Section in the UK and so forth.

The winners though were excellent value here in the shape of Pelorus Trust Wellington Brass conducted by the fine musician David Chaulk. Last year he showed his quality as a solo player by winning the Champion of Champions title for a second successive year, and this time he took the unselfish step of not competing to make it a hat trick and concentrated on his band instead. It worked wonders as his direction and interpretation of the set work, ‘The King of Elfland's Daughter' by Rodney Newton was as good as anything we had heard at Harrogate in 2004.

This was a modern sounding band with a modern sounding outlook and style generated from the MD and they were well worth their 6-point clear win.

In the C Grade, victory went to Tasman Eastern Bay of Plenty who also recorded a clear cut five point victory to take that particular title, whilst the D Grade was something of a non contest with the Levin and District Brass notching up a massive 33 point victory margin over the only other band in the section, Te Awamutu Brass Auxiliary.

Section A:

That just left the A Grade, and with bands from New Zealand, Australia, England and Sweden lining up this year, there was a true international feel about the event.

Custom dictates that the adjudicator from the previous years contest decides the set work for the following year, and so it came as little surprise that Dr. Robert Childs had picked ‘St. Magnus' as the very stern test for the bands here.

In the event they all produced fine accounts that drew praise from Alan Morrison, who declared himself a ‘little surprised' at how well the bands here and coped with what is seen as one of the modern movements most difficult test pieces.  He wasn't wrong either as a series of fine performances must have made his job more difficult than he may have thought. In the end he opted for a very compact and clear account from Gothenburg directed by Bengt Eklund to head the way at the end of the first day.

Theirs was a fine performance – full of detail and nuance and with a superb percussion team that rattled off their parts with an alarming facility. For those used to a fuller more bass led sound, Gothenburg may appear to have a lightness about them of timbre that might possibly see them not feature against the heavier sounding bands in the UK, but here they sounded balanced and robust enough and very much the best ‘in tune' band we have heard for many a day anywhere in the world.  

Bengt Eklund [left] and David Gallagher - MD Woolston Brass

Behind them came NZ Community Trust Woolston Brass directed by David Gallaher, who later this year will be directing the National Band of New Zealand on their tour to Europe. Theirs was a much more traditional approach – more sturdy and with great bass depth (Mr Johnston was plugging away to his hearts content) and it did benefit greatly from a quite awesome display of the euphonium players art from David Thornton, which eventually won him the award as the best soloists of the test piece contest when the final results were announced. 

These two bands were in a class of their own (later confirmed by talking with the adjudicator), and allied to their fine performances of the Sacred Works, which saw them both head the field again, it meant that going into the second day, Gothenburg were holding a narrow two point margin over Woolston as they headed into the all important Own Choice selections. 

Not that the two bands knew this of course, but it was fairly clear to the experienced listeners that this was the case, as the reigning champions, Dalewool Auckland Brass directed by Nigel Weeks hadn't really performed as well as they would have expected on either the set work or sacred item, whilst the other pre match favourites, Waitakere Brass also had a few too many dodgy moments to really push themselves to the fore.

A special mention however, for Yorkshire Co-operatives under John Roberts who did themselves and their country proud with a very well shaped sacred item in the form of ‘Wolvercote' which saw them claim third place in that category of the contest and a well produced ‘St. Magnus' that gained them fourth place on the set work.  Given that only a fortnight or so previously they were whacking out ‘Rienzi' in Bradford and they had to endure (that is the right word for the 24 hour trip to New Zealand in economy class) the long haul trip to get here, they can be justifiably proud of their achievements.

The Sunday was therefore a contest where the overall title was still very much up for grabs, and that was certainly made clear by a fine account of ‘Music of the Sphere's' by Dalewool off the number 1 draw.

It certainly wasn't in the class of YBS at the Europeans, but it was a worthy Southern Hemisphere premiere nonetheless, and even though there were a few ‘dodgy' moments, these didn't detract from a fine overall performance and one that showed that the bands here can tackle the most difficult repertoire with confidence. Nigel Weeks is a very good brass band conductor and his obvious musicality has rubbed off on his charges as there was some sublime solo playing from the likes of Mason Elliott once more and the doyen of euph players out here, Riki McDonnell.  It was deservedly given the Own Choice title, but as they had too much ground to make up from the previous day it meant that any hopes of making it a hat trick of National title wins in 2005 were lost. It was a very brave and memorable defence of their title though.

In fact the ‘Own Choice' category of the contest did throw up a few other results that showed that there is real strength in depth to the banding scene here.

St. Kilda Sentinel Brass conducted by Peter Adams gave a very fine account of ‘Tallis Variations' to come runners up, with the homegrown cornet playing of John Lewis of Brighouse and Rastrick a real beacon of class (as he was all week in the solo contests as well), whilst third place went to Gothenburg for their restrained account of Bram Gay's arrangement of ‘Les Preludes'.

There was some debate both here and back in the UK about what choice Professor Eklund would make here (a Philip Sparke work was rather mischievously suggested by someone), but in the end he decided on the Liszt, and was rewarded with a very musical and very academic performance that had much in it to admire for its undoubted clarity, balance and sense of restrained style. Some of the individual playing was of a very high class indeed – especially from the soprano player and the horn section in particular.  It certainly wasn't a tub thumper as we would have expected if played by a top UK band, but perhaps it was all the better for that and it gained third place in the category and was more than enough to secure the Swedes the overall title.

Woolston who had hoped to challenge for the title fell away somewhat to come out of the prize list, as did Waitakere and Simon Kerwin, who could count himself unlucky over the two days of the contest that his and his bands efforts were not appreciated more in the box. Alex Kerwin once more was on outstanding form , but not even here Herculean efforts on ‘Blitz' could push Waitakere into the frame.

It meant a top three therefore of Gothenburg, Woolston and Dalewool, and it was a fair reflection of both the standard of the three bands and the way in which they produced the class performances of the weekend that they filled the podium places come results time.

Alan Morrison was an excellent judge, and was not afraid to state clearly that he felt that perhaps some of the choices made by the bands in the ‘Own Choice' selections were not appropriate for the bands, and were perhaps choices made without recourse to the realities of the strengths and weaknesses of the bands themselves. As usual, he was right.

Bengt Eklund: Winning MD

It was left therefore for 4BR to link up with the most delightful and generous Professor Eklund as he and his band celebrated their win in marvellous fashion from the stage of the Michael Fowler Centre. He really is a wonderful chap – a warm and gregarious man, with an open smile and a lovely sense of humour. We touched on our previous encounter when we met with him in Norway when he was judging there, but all was smiles and good humour and he accepted our congratulations and those of many of the other competitors with a lovely smile and gracious thanks. He is a wonderful man indeed, and one who is held in the very highest regard by his band.

They themselves were wonderful ambassadors for their country - popular and generous of spirit and they were joined in friendship and alcohol well into the small hours of the Sunday night in the hall and then back at their local hotel, which became something of an United Nations of banding in the bar area.

Gothenburg came a very long way to New Zealand (the trip back was starting at 5am the next day – so some didn't go to bed) and for a band that professes not to particularly like contesting they showed that when they put their minds to it they ain't half bad at it though.

They were deserved winners in Wellington, and we think it will remain a highlight for them and for the organisers that they were victors. This was a wonderful event, very well run and with a real sense of banding community as players from all over the world joined up here. The 125th New Zealand Championships were a triumph, and 4BR can't wait to get out here again. Rumours are that a possible 2006 duet with soprano and baritone may be the excuse we need to come to Dunedin in 2006!

Iwan Fox