Waitakere Australian Tour

Easter 2007

Waitakere certainly turned a few heads in its recent visit to Australia. Steven Booth reports..

The Waitakere Band return from their trip to the Australian Nationals buoyed by some excellent performances, successes, new friends made and enhanced reputation.

The band's soprano cornet player Fendal Hill won the Soprano Cornet Championship and earned some excellent feedback and special mention by the adjudicator in the Champion of Champions, whilst guest Tuba player Steve Packer became the Eb Bass Champion of Australia for the second year in succession.

Other soloists also produced great performances and gained 3rd and 5th places, whilst the band's quartet, comprising Ian Billington, Lisa Rogers, Sergio Marshall and Bari Thomas, gained 2nd place in the Open Quartet.

Saturday morning saw the band resplendent in their turquoise marching uniforms ready for the street march. An hour and a half of waiting around presented some entertaining moments, including the sighting of former Waitakere MD Andy Snell carrying a bass drum, for his new band Willoughby. The band presented themselves extremely well under the professional direction of Drum Major Pete Johns, in fact Pete was so good at his job that he won best drum major of the A Grade bands.

In the "main" band events the band produced a magical setting of the hymn I'll Walk With God, followed by an extremely, technical and musical performance of the difficult set work Terra Australis, in which the band gained overall 4th place. This was despite some very unusual acoustics on stage which took many bands by surprise.

This piece featured many of the band's players in solos or cadenzas, far too many to list individually, but every single player played with dignity and confidence. We can be proud of all of them. Noteable also were the percussion section who tackled one of the most difficult percussion parts in banding test-pieces and played fantastically well, and the band's Australian Champion soprano cornet player Fendal Hill who produced one of the best performances of the fiendishly difficult soprano part on the day.

On the second day the band treated the audience to and exciting and again, musical rendition of their own choice work English Heritage.  The slow section of this performance was highlighted by many as one of their highlights of the weekend, featuring particularly Principal cornet Leon Renilson, Flugel horn Lisa Rogers and Tenor Horn Sergio Marshall. Eb Bass Stu Bennion, Solo Euphonium Bari Thomas and Solo Trombone Stuart Ritchie also marked themselves for special mention by virtue of their solo playing.

The band finished their weekend's work with the march Mephistopheles which, whilst a good performance with some great contrasts and brilliant playing, sometimes lacked the rhythmic discipline usually produced by the band. This may have been a result of having just finished the own choice testpiece which in itself is over 13 minutes long.

The above performance gained the band 5th place overall when the marks were aggregated which is an excellent start to the band's new era.

During the weekend the band also performed a concert with Australian Band Moreland City, who also provided a welcome barbecue and were excellent hosts.

Waitakere would also like to thank Darebin Band for allowing the band the use of their bandroom for rehearsals, and Steven and the band would like to offer their congratulations to all the victorious soloist and bands, especially Howard Taylor and Brisbane Excelsior whose fantastic performances justifiably earned them an historical treble.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend for the band with some great performances and, more importantly made lots of new friends and cemented further relationships with others.

Teamwork, attitude, professionalism, musicianship were all evident in abundance during the band's appearance at the Australian National Championships, and nothing displayed this more than the following email received by the guest principal cornet Leon Renilson following his first appearance with the band:

"……..a good time I feel to thank everyone in the band for making me so incredibly welcome out there in NZ and OZ for the last few weeks.  It was fantastic to meet you all and be part of the band preparing for the contest (and the partying was pretty good too from what I remember!).
 
Looks like Steve has created a little utopia with Waitakere.  Both Steve and I were members of Kennedys Swinton Brass when Dave King was there, it was a very unique band and after Dave left most people in that band have drifted around for years trying to find another band with the same sort of ethos, most gave up playing because they never found THAT band again.  I think Steve may currently be nearer than any of the members of Kennedys with finding a new band to fill that gap in their banding life, Kennedys was a one-off that will never exist again, but I certainly feel there is something special at a building stage there in Waitakerie. 
 
We've won plenty of majors between us but Steve will tell you, its not the winning, its not even the taking part, it's the journey you make to get to that point that makes it all worthwhile and you should never stop travelling."
 
The band are now preparing for their next concert, a Walk Down West End on May 4th at Glen Eden Playhouse, followed by more contest preparation for the Auckland Band Association contest, and New Zealand Nationals.