The Future's Purple

So, what was yesterdays picture all about?

On Sunday I took my fantastic children's brass band, the Lions Beginners, to the National Youth Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, that take place at the Royal Northern College of Music.

At 5.30am alarm call (on a Sunday, during the school holidays!) was not what the doctor ordered at all. However it was all worth it when the baton dropped at 9am and the band - aged between 6-12 (average age 8) struck up. I was delighted with them. The opening march went well, as did the Mozart overture, before our star cornet player, Hannah, wowed with her rendition of 'Gentle River.' Next was the sedate 'Chorale' before the band finished in toe-tapping style with Friezland Fiesta.

We then had to wait until 12 o'clock as the other six bands in the section performed their programmes. However, before you knew it, it was results time.

Anyone looking at the picture on the last post will realise where this is going; the Lions Beginners won a prize. In fact, they retained the trophy that they picked up last year; the award for 'Band Showing Most Potential.' I should perhaps mention here that I was actually delighted with the performance that the band game, and was not too bothered about whether the band picked up an award. You see, in October, the band (which was very inexperienced then) actually had to stop in a concert at one point as they couldn't play a piece. So, to go from that to giving such a confident performance in April left me feeling very proud of them. The award that they received was just a nice bit of icing on top of the cake.

It must not be forgotten that the other bands in the Lions organisation also entered; The Juniors picked up a Silver Award (and equal 4th place) in their section, which was their best ever performance at the competition. The Youth Band then performed in the Premier section (the top section of youth banding) and were also awarded a Silver Award and second place - for the third time in four years.

All in all, it really was a fantastic day for the Lions Youth Brass organisation.