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 Site © 1999-2008 Rothwell Temperance Band and All Rights Reserved. |
4th March 2001 - Yorkshire Area (Championship)Adjudicator: Steve Sykes The band achieved a disappointing 8th place in this year’s area contest at St Georges Hall in Bradford. We thought that we had put on a good performance on stage, and were confident that we had played the piece, especially the latter half quite well. 
The piece was very difficult and gave almost everyone in the band a solo at some point during it. Amazingly, we needed even more percussion gear than last year, including a djembe, which we ended up hiring from a shop in Leeds. We also needed some congas, which we borrowed from a local school. (Here’s hoping that next year’s piece is as interesting for us percussionists, but requires equipment we actually own!) The piece was quite a departure from traditional brass band music, forcing the band to play in a variety of style including swing and bebop. It was also very much open to interpretation, and the contest result would perhaps be dependent on the styles and speeds chosen by the conductor, as much as on the actual playing of the piece. In the run up to the contest, we had to contend with the sudden departure of Michael Howley to 2nd Euph at YBS, and the births of three new family members in our band. Lindsay Stark, one of our back row cornets, gave birth to Aidan, Gillian Walker (Nigel our bass player’s wife) gave birth to Sophie, and Catherine Roberts, the conductor’s wife and solo horn, gave birth to Ben. 
Our normal ‘spare’ solo horn, Les McCormack, was due to get married on the day before the area, so this left us with a solo horn player to find. We also had no euphoniums due to Dave Fowler’s move to 2nd Baritone and Michael’s departure. We were thankfully able to fill these positions with extremely good players – Billy Rushworth took the horn chair, Andy Keegan the solo Euph part and John Powell the 2nd Euph. We drew 3rd, just after Grimethorpe, who ended up being placed 3rd, so this did perhaps not help. Sellers drew first and ended up being placed last. The results were as follows: 1. Black Dyke Band 7. DUT Yorkshire Imperial Rothwell Yet again the other Rothwell band pipped us to the 7th place, as they, the same as us, achieved the same placing as last year. The band would like to thank the borrowed players, who helped out with this contest:
All eyes now again look forward to the Grand Shield at the start of May for our second attendance of this contest. This year, it has moved from Bolton to Blackpool so hopefully the hall will have better acoustics. We are also playing in the Masters contest for the first time this year, in Cambridge at the end of May. Tim Sawyer |