July

Cotswold Beer Festival

Despite all of the difficulties faced by the Band due to the floods in Gloucestershire, compounded by the hospitalisation of its Musical Director (Nigel Morgan) for an operation on his leg, on Saturday 28 July the Band appeared at the Cotswold Beer Festival organised by CAMRA at Postlip Hall. This is one of the Band's favourite engagements due to the enthusiastic audience, and just possibly the alcohol that flows! The Band would like to Thank our friend Dave Hayward who stepped in at very short notice to conduct us at this important event.

Euphology - Malvern Appearances Euphology is a Euphonium quartet that has been formed by two of our Malvern based players (Martin Warner & Michael Blake), one of the Band's friends and regular deps (Stuart Blake, Michael's father!) and one of Stuart's pupils (Alan Burton). They played their inaugural concert in Malvern on the weekend of the "great summer flood" to much critical acclaim. They also stepped into the breach to stand in for the band on the bandstand in Priory Park, Malvern when the band was unable to make it out of Tewkesbury to fulfil its engagement there on Sunday 22 July. A big Thank You to them for using their initiative and ensuring that the Band was represented in some form on the bandstand for those hardy souls who had ventured into the park that Sunday to listen to the band play! To find out more about Euphology and see more of John Warner's pictures visit their website at this link: Euphology

Curse of the Light Cavalry Overture
At the beginning of the Summer season, Nigel Morgan, our Musical Director, began introducing the Light Cavalry Overture with a story about how circus bands refused to play this popular overture since it was associated with bad luck and terrible events. We are starting to believe that there may be some truth in this superstition! Since we began playing this overture in May we have had three people have to go to hospital [Oliver Moss (front row cornet) who is very ill with Crohn's  disease, Dave Dron (Bb Bass) who has suffered heart trouble, and Nigel himself with an inflamed cyst on his leg],  as well as the terrible floods in Tewkesbury and our Bandroom! Coincidence or curse, I will leave you to decide!

Needless to say, we are busily looking for a different overture to play for the rest of the summer and our tour to Germany at the end of August.

Bandroom is flooded in "The Great Summer Flood"
Residents of Tewkesbury and the surrounding areas have been severely hit by 'unprecedented' floods this month. Members of our Band has been stranded in their homes, unable to get through the water. The Bandroom, despite being out of the town in Ashchurch, was also hit by the floods. It appears that the entire length of the Bandroom was flooded, up to 14 inches at one end. Many items of music and instrument cases were caught up in the flood waters, so if you wish to hear pieces beginning with the letters B, S , Z, etc (those in the bottom drawers of the filing cabinets) then you could be disappointed.

A more detailed report will follow shortly but in the meantime, you can see some pictures here:

Click here for pictures of the floods and the Bandroom 

Ashchurch School Fete
On the evening of Friday 6 July the Training Band was invited to play at Ashchurch School Fete, a school several of the Training Band members attend so they were keen to put on a good performance. It was another of those typical summer days with the threat of rain and blustery winds! The Training Band played a short programme of music once the various school groups had done their performances. We played a selection of tunes including 'Marching Saints', 'Real Pop', 'The Jungle Suite', 'Schnappi' and 'Ground Force'.

Massed Bands for Evesham Festival of Music The great British summer continued on Sunday 1 July as the Band ventured to a wet Evesham for the second time this year! Thankfully, the rain held off for the afternoon this time round and the Band finally got to entertain the Evesham folks. We had been invited along with four other local bands to play as part of an afternoon of musical entertainment in a marquee in Abbey Park as part of the inaugural Evesham Festival of Music organised by the Rotary Club of Evesham. The presence of five bands for the afternoon's entertainment meant that there was a good sized audience for the proceedings. The various bands involved each played a short 15 to 20 minute programme of their own choice before all the players amalgamated to form a huge massed band to round the event off. We played our short programme as the fourth band on, following some enjoyable music from Celebration Brass & Reed Band, Alcester Victoria Band, and Shipston Town Band. Our programme included our own signature tune march 'Tewkesbury', 'Beyond the Sea', the cornet trio 'Buglers' Holiday' and one of our favourites from the past two years 'Marching Onward'. We were joined by Ken Smith on Eb Bass who was continuing his tradition at events such as this of playing with as many bands as possible. We were also helped out on flugel by Trevor from Alcester Victoria band. The massed band segment included several well worn brass band favourites that the majority of the players would know well and hence would put on a good show with when playing them together. The various conductors of the Bands taking it in turns to try and tame the 100+ players in the massed ensemble! Some of the tunes to be given the massed band treatment were 'Born Free', 'The Floral Dance', 'Eternal Flame', 'Colonel Bogey' and 'Liberty Bell'. A fantastically fun afternoon and I've never heard 'Born Free' sound as good! Here's hoping that this event really takes off and that we can play a part in it again next year!

Ross on Wye Bandstand - Youtube appearance
The Band was pleased that the weather for their appearance on Ross on Wye bandstand on Sunday 8th July was much better than the showers that were a feature of their appearance in 2006. The band played a selection of items from its Summer programme to a good audience in the park and numerous passers-by.

The Band's performance of 'Beyond The Sea' was videoed by the local media and can be seen on the video sharing website Youtube.

July

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Revised: October 13, 2007