2006 NSW State Championships - A Grade Retrospective

Few were surprised to see Waratah Brass make a clean sweep of the A Grade events, once again firmly positioning itself as number 1 in New South Wales, and worthy winners they were.

Waratah Brass - 2006 A Grade NSW State Champions

The contest organisers did a remarkable job of starting all sessions bang on time and moving each band on and off stage with clock work efficiency.  With 26 bands each performing two test selections (except for Junior C Grade who did a concert item instead of an Own Choice) and a sacred item, presenting such an enormous feast of music over two days, was a super achievement.

Kevin Jarrett MBE, who had not been given the go-ahead by his doctor until the day before the contest to fly to Sydney (!), was stellar.  His work load over the two days was enormous.  As well as the decision making processes, who few could argue with,  Kevin took to the stage at the completion of each session to present his rationale and advice to the bands, which was well recieved, appreciated and accepted.  By the end of the weekend, he had spent in excess of 22 hours adjudicating.

The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre was a superb venue.  Access, proximity to amenities, parking, acoustics, foyer space for trade stands, and stage size were all well catered for.  Unfortunately, there was an issue with the warm-up area.  Bands playing in the warm-up area could be clearly heard in the main auditorium between movements or moments of quiet playing.  The venue also had a terrific looking bar area, but...it was closed!

A Grade band critiques
Test:  Harrisons Dream (Peter Graham) 

Waratah Brass (Ron Prussing)
Sacred Item:  I Walked Today (Where Jesus Walked) (Geoffrey O'Hara arr. John Richards)
Own Choice:  St Magnus (Kenneth Downie)
The sacred item was played with great sensitivity.  Sounds from cornets, horns and troms were lovely, though there could have been more bass end for us.

The band got off to an excellent start in the test with good detail.  Solo cornet did very well, as did soprano, troms, horn, baritone and percussion.  Some warmth in sound was lost in the quiet playing and more dynamic contrast was needed, mainly with the softer dynamic.  Still would have liked more bass sound. 

There was stellar playing in St Magnus.  Again, solo cornet, soprano, troms and percussion were sections of great strength.  There were many great moments in this piece, with a great feel and one could sense the band growing in confidence as the piece progressed.  MD, Ron Prussing, lost his baton close to the end but the band was on the home straight and nothing was going to stop them!  The last chord was outstanding.

Willoughby City (Andrew Snell)
Sacred Item:  Reflections in Nature (Robert Redhead)
Own Choice:  Journey into Freedom (Eric Ball)
The Sacred Item got off to a good start from the cornets but really needed more bass sound to ‘sit' on.  Tuning was not always secure.  For us, this piece needed to pick up in tempo in order for it to flow and make more musical sense. 

The opening to Harrison's Dream was exciting and energetic though much of the detail was lost due to overpowering percussion – or maybe the cornets just weren't loud enough?  There was some great playing from the Solo cornet, horn and Eb bass. The bells were well done.  The euphonium did very well – mostly.  The top D's proved somewhat elusive for soloist, Jeff Ma – and he had the privilege of standing so the audience could well and truly focus on the poor guy's pain.  We really felt for you, Jeff.  Some intonation problems occasionally crept in during the bigger band sounds, and insecurities were too frequent in the slower and softer moments.

Band unison quavers at the opening of Journey were a tad on the short side.  Triplet detail could not be heard well and the players would not have been happy with the number of splits.  Sop, solo cornet and horn played very well.  Eb bass also did a great job.  There was some fine playing in this piece with good sense of style and feel, however, the band did seem to run out of steam at the end. 

It was terrific to see Willoughby back on the up and up.  The return of some of the bands key players such as Brian McGuinness and Mick Donohue has no doubt boosted things for them. 

Second placed Willoughby City with Andy Snell as conductor

St Mary's Band Club (Ken Bradley)
Sacred Item:  His Provision (Ivor Bosanko)
Own Choice:  Whitsun Wakes (Michael Ball)
It was a lovely opening to the sacred item from the Euph, and solo horn was very expressive.  Cornets generally needed a warmer sound. The trio could have flowed a little more.  The music needed to be given a more ‘time'. 

Harrison's Dream had moments of brilliance and then not so brilliant.  Some parts were exciting but there were too many times when the playing became quite loose, including some incorrect entries (confident ones though!).  The horn and solo cornet did well. The euphonium playing from Mark Howcroft was the best on the day for us.  What a pity this piece wasn't played by this band as we would have hoped.  Technically, St Mary's is obviously quite outstanding – but unfortunately this performance seemed under-rehearsed.

Whitsun Wakes was significantly better.  There were plenty of big, broad sounds and lots of exciting technical passages which came off really well.  There was some fine playing from basses, baritone, horn and bass trom.  The Timpani also did well. The cadenzas worked reasonably well though all players did have their moments.  Some of the bands best playing occurred towards the end of this piece. 

Again - what a pity the bands performance of the test piece let them down.  Had St. Mary's performed to their potential, they could have easily threatened the number one position.  One gets the sense this band is definitely under-achieving.

Back row takes a breather - St Marys Band Club

City of Holroyd (Mark Strykowski)
Sacred:  The Day Thou Gavest (CC Scholefield arr. Philip Wilby)
Own Choice:  Paganini Variations (Philip Wilby)
Lovely opening to the sacred item from Euph, bari and cornets.  There were some intonation issues but the sounds were warm.  Timpani did well, as did horns.  Unfortunately, the intonation issues were a concern for us. Euph finishes nicely as did the final chord.

The test opened perhaps slightly on the slow side and sections were not quite together.  There were lovely sounds from the solo horn, euph and bari did well.  Balance was an issue in some areas and more dynamic contrast, excitement and sparkle was generally needed.  The quieter dynamics were attempted but quality of sound suffered as a consequence. 

It was a rather hurried and frantic start to Paganini which resulted in some looseness.  Euphonium – did you play an A natural or A flat in the opening theme?  Nice work from cornet and bass but more needed from sop.  Horn did very well once again.  Flugel has a great sound but there were some intonation issues that unfortunately detracted from the overall performance.  The final passages were missing so much detail and the band sounded blown out by the final chord which was held way too long.   

This band has some superb individual players without a doubt.

City of Holroyd with MD, Mark Strykowski

Ron Prussing excitedly accepted the award and trophies for the winning band in A Grade.  In a controversial moment, he thanked the organisers for this year appointing an adjudicator who 'knew what he was doing' and not some 'clarinet player'.  More can be heard from Ron on the podcast.