The Wychavon Festival of Brass, held annually in Worcestershire, celebrated it’s twenty-second anniversary on the weekend of 17th and 18th September 2011. The event took place in the strangely named Number 8 Arts Centre in the middle of the historic town of Pershore.

A report published on its website says the Enderby Senior Band again competed in the First Section with an excellent programme including ‘When the saints, Mid all the traffic, Concert Etude, Spanish Dance and ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun’ from Martin Ellerbys suite, ‘Evocations’.

‘Concert Etude’ featured Nick Smith as soloist. Adjudicator Dr Robert Childs (MD of the current British open champions Cory Band) described Nicks playing as “impressive”. In fact he was full of praise all round commenting on fine soloists in ‘When the saints’, applauding the controlled, expressive and beautiful playing of ‘Mid all the traffic’ He loved the atmosphere created in ‘Royal Hunt of the Sun’ (must have been Stans rather manic “Haka” that did it). He thought that ‘Spanish Dance’ was an effective inclusion in the programme and finished his written remarks with the comment: “Good programme, very well played and directed”.

Jonathan was a little worried when he was told that the band had exceeded the time limit for the performance by 18 seconds, and had therefore incurred a time penalty. Fortunately this did not affect the final result and a very happy band took home the £1000 first prize and a fabulous trophy to go with it.

Here’s to the next one !!