The Ups and Downs of contesting
- m109013
- Apr 2
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 12
Last weekend, Olney Brass Open band and Olney Brass Beginners (who joined forces with Towcester Studio Band Beginners), took part in the open group section at Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts for Dance, Speech and Music. Both groups played really well, received lovely feedback from the adjudicator and were commended with each of their peformances. The beginner group also received a special bronze award, in recognition of what they have achieved in less than 6 months of learning a brass instrument, at their debut to The Venue stage! Well done and thank you to every single member of each band who took part and our compatriots at Towcester Studio Band. You were amazing and we are so proud of you all! Thank you to all those involved in preparing the
children (and our adult players too) for this event, especially Bob, Sara , Phil and our talented and dedicated band leader David.
The senior band took to the stage at Stevenage the same weekend, recently promoted, the result of the contest determines whether or not we could maintain a position as a worthy Second Section band. The table below shows all 18 bands competing, results are averaged over three years to determine where in the table the band lie. After a favourable performance with some genuinely positive comments we ended joint 13th and retain our Section 2 status. Competing against First Section bands who have recently been relegated ( R ) and bands with senior and more experienced players this was a good result. Particular praise goes to those competing with us for the first time at this level - Finn, Barney, Alex, Fonella and special thanks to Tom and Dusan who returned to help.
The Archive
Last month I mentioned that former cornet player Darren Umney had kindly offered to help digitise the band archive which many of you enjoyed looking through at the 50th Concert. This involves scanning each image and saving them ready to upload onto our website. It will be a permanent record of our activities since the formation of the band. Here are some images from the first folder with only another five folders to go!
Spring / Summer dates confirmed
Sat 26th April King’s Award ceremony for Redway Runners
Sat 3rd May Denton VE day celebrations 2.00pm
Sat 8th June Clifton Reynes Fete 1.00pm
Sun 15th June Ravenstone Fete
Tues 24th June Summer Showcase Newport Church 6.30pm
Sun 29th June Cherry fayre Olney 12.00pm
