What a fabulous day at the Wychavon Festival of Brass 2018 – Saturday 3rd November

The great news is that Verwood Concert Brass came 5th – a fantastic result against some exceedingly good competition.

But the BIG NEWS is . . . this means VCB have qualified for the first time to compete in the Spring Brass Band Festival at Blackpool in the Senior Trophy section.

Huge congratulation all round for a fantastic result.

By way of explanation, the Spring Brass Festival is a nationwide competition which is arranged in three leagues. The top league is the Grand Shield contest, which can lead to competing at the very prestigious British Open contest, but to compete in the Grand Shield contest, bands have to be promoted from the next league down, the Senior Cup contest. But to get into the Senior Cup bands have to be promoted from the Senior Trophy contest. So, if you have stayed with it, this means that VCB is now on the first rung of competing at a national level.

If all goes well, and with some hard work and dedication, plus some good fortune thrown in, the band can look forward to competing at this level for some time and hopefully move on up to the Senior Cup and maybe beyond.

The really crucial thing though is to get the invite into the Senior Trophy contest in the first place and this is why the Wychavon contest result was so important as this is one of the contests that acts as a qualifier for entry into the Senior Trophy.

So how did the Wychavon contest pan out?

VCB were in the top Championship Section competing against 16 other bands. As it is an entertainment contest each band performs a 20 minute programme of their choice but as the name implies, it should aim to entertain. It is a long day with the first band starting at 11am with the last band finishing at 8:30pm but what an absolutely fantastic day it was with such a huge variety of music and so excellently performed.

Although VCB entered with the aim of winning, the competition was of a very high calibre. Of the 17 bands competing, 6 had already pre-qualified for the Blackpool Spring Brass Festival, so if VCB did not win the Wychavon contest it needed to be placed higher than all of the other 10 bands who were vying for the one qualifying spot.

VCB are currently ranked 134th in the world but were up against Aldbourne Band (ranked 34th) who came 2nd, City of Cardiff (ranked 49th) who came 3rd, Filton Concert Brass (ranked 68th) who came 1st and were pipped by Eccles Borough Band (ranked 139th) who came 4th. Fortunately, all these bands have pre-qualified, thus leaving VCB in the top qualifying spot.

Congratulations to those bands, Forresters Brass for winning the entertainment award and indeed all of the bands and the organisers for creating an exceptional day of brass banding.

And here’s wishing Verwood Concert Brass Band all the best on its new venture competing at this national level. The 99th Spring Brass Festival is on the 18th May 2019 at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool.