Saturday 20th March 2010

A Creditable 5th Place at Swansea

Blaenavon Town, the only Second Section Band in the UK to hail from Gwent, The Kingdom of Dragons.  From a number one draw the band set down a tough marker that kept us in the qualification places right up until the last three bands.

The main task of the day was to put in a performance that the band could be proud of and I think we did that.  Bandsmen will know of the time and effort that is put into preparing for these contests and this was no exception.  The heroes of the day had to be the Percussion Section who had to cope with a percussion part that demanded a huge range of instruments and asked them to sound like rampant rugby players in Pontypool Park and mechanised mayhem in Blaenau Gwent.

Blaenavon MD, Andrew Protherough-Jones was pleased with the preparations, "I thought we had a good rehearsal and that the band felt confident.  The performance went well as indicated by our written adjudication which was largely complimentary whilst offering some positive criticism.  The performance set a solid marker for the section."

The test piece offered many challenges to the band.  There is no hiding place and every player has to be on form to create a performance. Andrew added that "the band has made significant progress from studying this music, which opens the gateway for further challenging music in the future."

There were several players making their first contest appearance for the band; Linda Mealing and Ashia Church on Cornet, Kale Church (pictured) on Bass Trombone and Grace Hart, normally a cornet player but joining the ranks of the percussion section for this contest.

The qualification places went to our friends in Tylorstown who came first and the North Wales outfit Deiniolen.  Best of luck in Harrogate guys.

1. Tylorstown (G. Davies), 12*
2. Deiniolen (G. Saynor), 11*
3. Lewis Merthyr (G. Pritchard), 3
4. Llanrug (P. Hughes), 10
5. Blaenavon Town (A. Protherough-Jones), 1
6. Gwaun Cae Gurwen (G.R. Davies), 7
7. Royal Buckley Town (J. Doyle), 4
8. Crosskeys Silver (K. Bowden), 9
9. Briton Ferry (Dr. C. Jenkins), 6
10. Newtown Silver (S. Edwards), 8
11. Yynshir (D. Evans), 5
12. RAF St. Athan Voluntary (A.R. Bourne), 2

Adjudicator: Malcolm Brownbill