Championship delight for Llwydcoed at Wychavon
THE Wychavon Festival of Brass was a great success and Welsh bands are becoming regular competitors at this well-organised event.
The Festival attracted bands from all the regions of Great Britain except for the North of England, ie from Wales, Scotland, Yorkshire, North-West of England, the Midlands, South-West of England, London and Southern Counties.
This year has seen the largest entry ever with 46 bands giving 60 performances – 18 of these performances were given by 12 Welsh bands.
There was also a strong Welsh presence in the adjudicators’ boxes as both Dr Robert Childs, who judged the Championship Section, and Tom Davoren, who judged the First Section, are from South Wales.
The adjudicator for the Fourth and Third Sections was Anne Crookston and David Hirst judged the Second Section.
It was quite a mixed day for Welsh hopes on Saturday, but there was certainly joy in the Championship Section when Llwydcoed was pronounced 2017 Festival Champions and Ebbw Vale was placed second and received an invitation to compete in the Senior Trophy at the 2018 Spring Festival at Blackpool in May.
Also in the Championship section was City of Cardiff (Dewi Thomas) who finished in fourth place and BTM (Jeff Hutcherson) in 11th.
The two Welsh bands in the 12 competing bands in the First Section were Ebbw Valley and BTM who finished fourth and fifth respectively.
There were also two Welsh bands in the Second Section and of the 10 bands Blaenavon (David Langley) finished fifth and Ammanford (Glyn Davies) sixth.
In the Third Section Ynyshir, conducted by Gary Davies were more than happy with their fifth place out of 10 bands as about half of the band are very young players.
They were really delighted to gain the Best Baritones award for the Third Section.
1st Rode Hall Silver (Nigel Butler); 2nd Wem Jubilee (Roger Thorne); 3rd Ledbury Community (Colin Herbert).
1st Wem Jubilee (Roger Thorne); 2nd Stourport-on-Severn (Oliver Wilson); 3rd Hawk Green (Neil Hewson).
1st The Haydock Band (Mark Quinn); 2nd Milton
Porthywaun were placed sixth and won a percussion prize. Both Cross Keys and Oakdale, who ended the day in ninth and 10th respectively, were very Keynes Brass (Jonathon Mott); 3rd Crofton Silver(Dean Jones). 1st Enderby (Simon Greswell); 2nd Eccles Borough (Mareika Gray); 3rd Johnstone (Martyn Ramsay).
1st Llwydcoed (Christopher Turner); 2nd Ebbw Valley Brass (Gareth Ritter); 3rd Medway (Melvin White). positive about their performances and Mike Davies, MD of Cross Keys, was satisfied with his band’s playing and considered it to be a step in the right direction.
In the Fourth Section Porthywaun (Dougie Graham) was placed fourth and Oakdale (Kerry Bowden) placed sixth.
For readers who would like to get more information about the bands at Wychavon, you can find it at www.4barsrest.com on the internet.
The site covers brass bands the world over and if you have any interest in brass bands then this is a site that you should visit.