Saturday 15th March
It was another early start for the band as we all travelled up to Stevenage
for the London & Southern Counties area contest. The test piece was a brand
new one; Paul Lovatt-Cooper's "Dark Side of the Moon". We drew 13th to play
out of the 17 bands that turned up to compete. A lot of work had gone into
our preparation for this contest, including having a blitz on tuning and
intonation. It paid off though, because we came away with 179 points which
was enough to net us 5th place. Although this wasn't enough for a
trip to Harrogate, it's a considerable improvement on being placed 10th for
the last 2 years.
After the Easter break, the band will resume preparations for the Crawley Entertainments Contest in May. Best of luck to Littleport, Hangleton and Brighton & Hove City Bands for September though!
At the beginning of the year, after a three month audition & selection process with a number of candidates, Andrew Porter was hired as the band's M.D., starting January (biography to follow).
Our 10th place at the Stevenage area contest was encouraging, but was still indicative of the amount of improvement work that lay ahead for us; nevertheless another 3rd place at Crawley was nothing to be sneezed at!
We managed to visit 6 villages on our bi-annual Whit Friday trip this year and wound up with placings of between 19th & 36th place along with a place on this year's Whit Friday Best of CD.
September saw sop player Dorinda be crowned player of the year and librarian, Eb bass player & good all round useful bandsperson Ken be crowned bandsperson of the year. Fast forward to late November and the band received 2 new additions to our uniform range. Knee-length black raincoats for use at Winter jobs which were seen for the first time at the Wokingham Winter Carnival and band fleeces for use as a "walking-out" uniform (pictures still to come).
December saw flugel player Janatha marry fiancee Mark with some of the band playing for the happy couple on their wedding day. Best wishes to them both for the future!
2008 will see us competing at the Stevenage contests and hopefully qualifying for the National Finals for the first time since 2005. Do keep an eye on our diary on this site and you may even see us near you!
Sunday 23rd September
After the great success of last year's inaugural Mayor's Charity Concert at
Wokingham Theatre (website feature coming soon), the band proceeded to hold
the second one on the evening of Sunday 23rd. It also saw the debut of two
brand new band awards; the player of the year (M.D.'s choice) and bandsman
of the year (band's choice). The first winners were sop player Dorinda Bray
for player of the year and librarian & Eb bass player Ken Smith for
bandsperson of the year. Congratulations to them both!
Since the concert was also a celebration of Wokingham's twinning with
Erftstadt, our programme included the following works:
After the interval & raffle...
Sunday 20th May
The band went to the 26th SCABA Entertainment Contest, held as usual at the Hawth Theatre, Crawley.
Our 24 minute programme for this year consisted of:
We drew to play 7th out of a total of 7 bands and finished playing with 38 seconds of our allocated time slot to spare! Results time came and we learned that with 85 points we'd been awarded 3rd place with £50 prize money, a cup and a certificate.
As with last year, it's a result that the band can feel pleased with but much more could have been gained from the day. Still, we have a chance to reap some great results at this year's Whit Friday marching contests. We hope to see you there!
Sunday 18th March
The band headed for Stevenage once again to compete in the London & Southern
Counties area contest. We had put a lot of work into Darrol Barry's Prelude
& Jubilate but a good result was sadly not to be as our performance once
again netted us 10th place. The band will be back next year, hoping for
better things though and on behalf of all at Saints, best of luck at the
finals to Epsom & Ewell and Thundersley Brass at the finals.
Sunday 21st May
After a year out due to preparations for the Whit Friday marches, the band went to the 25th SCABA Entertainment Contest, held as usual at the Hawth Theatre, Crawley.
Our 24 minute programme for this year consisted of:
The contest also marked Principal Cornet Rob Leeson's last major engagement with the band before moving to America for 2 years.
It's a result that the band can feel pleased with but much more could have been gained from the day. Still, it's onwards now to the Summer season with our usual range of fetes, parades and one very important engagement all coming up...
Saturday 18th March
The band headed for Stevenage once again for the London & Southern Counties regional heats of the Besson National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, armed with Gilbert Vinter's Entertainments as the test piece. After our efforts of last year (3rd place) we went in with high expectations after being drawn 5th in the playing order.
On the day however we didn't do ourselves justice. 10th place said to us that we left the performance we needed in the bandroom a week before and was a bit of a disappointment.
Adjudicator Colin Hardy was particularly severe on our intonation and some untidiness in the first movement, concluding we gave "a very mixed performance with some good musical moments but too many errors today"
So it's back to the hymn books and the drawing board for another year. On behalf of everyone at St Sebs, good luck to LGB and Norfolk Wherry bands for Harrogate
Saturday 24th December
Well, what a year it's been! A couple of long-haul trips up north, 3 jobs
for the Royal British Legion, a busy summer and a few things for the band to
think about. We made a good start to the year with a 3rd place at Stevenage
and returned from the Whits with a 9th at Dobcross. Our annual charity
concert in Wargrave followed in July, and in August, soprano cornet player
Dorinda Garner became Dorinda Bray as she tied the knot while the band
playing at her reception. Also in August, a few band members went on the
annual Brass Band Summer School in Bromsgrove and preparations continued
into September on the test piece for the National Finals. Our efforts
however only netted us 13th. In November we had our annual jobs for the
Cantley fireworks display, Remembrance Sunday and the Wokingham Winter
Carnival. December saw the band's range of annual Christmas jobs including
another charity concert for the Wokingham District Cancer Care Trust.
So, what's in store for 2006? Amongst the highlights for this year, our first rehearsal is on January 9th when we'll be working on the 3rd section Regionals test piece, Gilbert Vinter's "Entertainments". 2006 is also going to mark the band's 75th anniversary year. Watch this site for more details on this.
Sunday 25th September
After our success at this year's L&SC Regional Qualifying Contest in
Stevenage, it was time to go one step further and compete in the National
Finals in Harrogate. The 3rd section test piece was "A Gallimaufry Suite"
by Philip Harper. After a 6 hour coach trip to Leeds the previous day, we
had a rehearsal in a very nice hotel, a good meal and a few drinks to get
us ready for an 8:00 start the following day.
We got to Harrogate in good spirits and drew to play 11th (not long to wait then!). Rehearsals had gone well, but our performance on the day was only good enough to net 13th place out of the total of 19 bands competing. This left us with another 6 hour coach trip home and next year's qualifiers to look forward to.
Saturday 19th March
Once again the band headed for Stevenage to compete in the London & Southern
Counties Area Contest. The test piece was the symphonic sketch "Tam O'Shanter's Ride" by Denis Wright, which is based on the poem by Robert Burns.
We had drawn to play 17th (and last!) and thought that we would have a challenge ahead of us. Our time did come however and we did produce a great performance.
Results time came and we were delighted to hear from adjudicator Malcolm Brownbill that the band had racked up 179 points and earned £75 prize money, a large cup and a ticket to the finals in Harrogate! We have also managed to move up from 10th to 6th in the grading tables.
The amount of work put in by both band and conductor for this contest was phenomenal and was well reflected today. The band are now taking a bit of time-out over Easter and will get together again on Thursday 31st March to start work on music for the Whit Friday marching contests in May.
Friday 24th December
Over the past month, the band have been very busy with a range of
Christmas-based engagements. We started with leading a procession at the
Wokingham Winter Carnival on 28th November and then performed at our annual
Christmas Concert at St. Mark's Church in Bourne End. A small end-of dinner
concert at Wokingham Masonic Centre on 10th December followed and then an
almost sell-out charity concert at Wokingham Theatre on 16th December which
raised £2,000 for the Wokingham District Cancer Care Trust. A couple of carol
engagements followed at Tesco Superstore, Wokingham on the 17th December and at The Crooked Billet pub on the 20th December. At this job we also said goodbye to Tenor Horn player Anne Gentry. She will be joining Alder Valley
Brass with husband (and former M.D.) Bruce. Our run finished on Christmas
Eve with carols at California Ratepayers Hall in Finchampstead.
The band are now taking advantage of a long rest and a chance to look at next year's area test piece (Tam O'Shanter's Ride).
Our first rehearsal of the new year is on Thursday 6th January at 8pm. If anyone would be interested in joining the band or would just like to come along for a blow, then please do!
Saturday 9th October
The band once again made the
longish-haul trip to Folkestone, Kent for the annual SCABA Autumn Contest at
Leas Cliff Hall. We drew to play 2nd in the playing order out of a total of 9
bands and performed "How Sweet The Name" (by Ronald Tremain and arranged by
Donald Osgood) as our hymn tune and "Three Impressions For Brass" by Arthur
Butterworth as our test piece.
We scored 85 points for our hymn tune performance which placed us fourth and 186 points for the test piece performance which netted us 2nd place (1 point behind 1st place!), the best percussion section award and new M.D Dave Richards bagged the best conductor prize! All in all, another fantastic day and a great reward for some excellent rehearsal work by all!
Saturday 11th September
The band made its annual trip to London to play at the Malta Day
celebrations. This year they were held at the Emmanuel Centre in Marsham
Street (SW1) and at Westminster Cathedral.
As with last year an early start was needed to get to London early enough
(leaving the band room at 7:30am!). Once we got there we played some
background music for the Maltese fair in the morning and in the afternoon we
lead the procession from the cathedral to the in Horseferry Road. Arriving back at the band room for 6:45 it was
another long but most enjoyable all day all round!
Saturday 26th June
The band were very upset to hear of Alan Clacey Senior's death at the age of
88. Alan had been one of the founder members of the band back in 1931 and was
the band's longest standing musical director for 26 years. His son, Alan
junior, was a member of the band for some time before leaving due to work
commitments. He will be sorely missed by friends and family.
Sunday 16th May
The Band headed for Crawley, West Sussex to
compete in the 23rd SCABA Entertainment Contest. Our programme was:
Musical Director Bruce Gentry was making his final appearance with the band today so this made a great leaving present for him. It was also bass player Edd Leach's final appearance with the band before leaving us due to various other committments.
Sunday 21st March
The Band went to Stevenage to compete in the London & Southern Counties
Area Contest. The test piece was Vizcaya by Gilbert Vinter, who also
composed the well known Brass Band pieces "Spectrum" and "Variations on a
Ninth". Vizcaya paints a picture of festival time in the Basque region of
south-west France, and is based on Basque folk tunes. Vinter's son said
"Vizcaya is both challenging, and intoxicatingly optimistic, full of
Mediterranean sunshine". 18 bands competed in the contest, and Saints
were drawn to play No. 7. The combination of nerves and playing in a
strange venue however led to us being placed 9th, by the adjudicator,
Dennis Wilby, with a score of 163 points. Though this was a disappointing
result the band has now moved up to 10th place (out of 19) in the Third
Section. The first contest of the year now over, the band is rehearsing
hard for the SCABA Entertainment contest in Crawley on 16th May.
Saturday 11th October
The Band competed in the Southern Counties Amateur Bands Association (SCABA) contest in Folkestone.
We are a third section band in the National Registry, but with SCABA we are
graded second section. So, we're expected to compete against third and second
section bands.
We drew to play 7th out of 11 bands and we chose to play our selected hymn
followed by Brass Dynamics as our test pieces.
The Band had worked very hard at rehearsals and were rewarded by being placed
third over all in our section for both the hymn and the test piece - just 2
points behind the winning band!
Saturday 13th September
For the fourth year in succession the Band was invited to play for the Malta Day celebrations in London. This year they were held at St Columba's Church and the Brompton Oratory in Knightsbridge.
We left the Band Room at 7.30am to arrive in London in time to play outside in the street while the dignitaries arrived - trying hard to drown out the noise of the traffic! Then we moved inside to play background music for the Maltese Fayre.
The day ended with the Band leading the procession from the Oratory around the streets of London. We arrived back at the Band Room at 6.30 - another long, but enjoyable day.
4 Pictures of the day
Sunday 22nd June
The Band was invited to play outside St Paul's Cathedral to welcome home cyclists who had completed a sponsored ride from Rome to London.
We also had the chance to play inside the Cathedral in between the Sunday services.