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25th May 2008 - International MastersAdjudicators: Eric Crees, David Read, Philip Sparke The All England International Masters contest has seen some good results in recent years for the band, with a third in 2007 and a win in 2006. It has, however, not been good for the order of play draw, with the band playing second in 2005 and 2007, and seventh in 2006. It’s not somewhere that we draw late! This year’s test piece was a new commission, Martin Ellerby’s Malcolm Arnold Variations. This was a tricky piece comprising an introduction, twenty variations and a finale, inspired by the works of Malcolm Arnold but not directly quoting from him. There were no large solos in the piece, but individual parts were tricky in places including a very high soprano cornet part. There were only three percussion parts, but such were the demands for changing instruments at speed that we opted to perform it with five players. The band travelled down on the Saturday afternoon and rehearsed in our usual local school in Godmanchester before the band adjourned to a local hostelry for food and merriment. It was an early night, however, as we knew that we had drawn in the first third of the contest (again!) and so had to be up for breakfast ready to be on the bus at quarter to eight. A quick rehearsal later and we found ourselves waiting for the draw. When the draw came through, we were playing second. Again! This made three times in the last four years that we’d drawn second, which must surely be a record. The band then scrambled to get back on the bus and travel to the hall ready to play. The band drawn to play first was Jaguar, who had only been working on the piece for two weeks. They were a last minute replacement for Willebroek who could not attend due to many of their players being unavailable to make the trip. Behind stage, whilst listening to Jaguar’s performance, we had a major problem with one of our basses, where the fourth valve began to stick down. With some brute force from Ed Hodkin, and Andy Marsh’s cloth, everything seemed to be fixed. Thanks to the contest organisers, we did have the option of borrowing a replacement instrument from the band before, but thankfully everything was sorted in time. Our performance on stage went well, with a few minor clips. We thought that the band sound shone through and that we had put across the performance that we had rehearsed back in the bandroom. We were happy with what we played. The band then dispersed off to local pubs to wait for them to open, whilst others went into the hall to listen to some of the other bands. There were some excellent performances throughout the day, and the general buzz in the hall was that Fodens had played the best performance. Come results time, there was a gasp from the audience as Fodens were announced in sixth place. The full results of the contest were: 1. Desford Colliery, Nigel Seaman, 11 7. Rothwell Temperance, David Roberts, 2 The adjudicators had decided to go for the interpretation they liked the most, and disregarded some of the small errors that were heard. They were looking for a band that captured Malcolm Arnold’s music as best they could. We were happy with our placing, and thought it might have been slightly higher given a later draw. The band send their congratulations to all the prize winners. The band would like to thank: The next contest is the English Nationals, featuring another new commission, Infinity by Robert Redhead. Tim Sawyer |