European Brass Band Championships, Belfast 2006
by Stephen Murray
On Friday 28th April almost half of the Drogheda Brass Band made the trip up to the European Brass Band Championships which where held in Belfast this year. The European Brass Band Championships is the elite contest in the banding world with bands from all over Europe competing.
Brass Band Willebroek
The trip started with bad news as we learned that the draw had seen Black Dyke Band drawn first which unfortunately meant that we would miss their performance due to massive traffic jams. When we eventually got settled into our accomodation we finally reached the Waterfront Hall. However, we were certainly left disappointed as the test piece "Seascape with High Cliffs" by Ian Wilson was a rather dull piece for the listeners although certainly a different challenge for the bands.
Following the conclusion of the test piece part of the contest we reflected on part one over a pint (or two), we all had our favourites and finally agreed that there was nothing between the bands after day one.
Day two began with the "B" Section of the contest featuring Ireland's Arklow Shipping Silver Band. Unfortunately, I missed most of this but did get there for the last band, Brass Band Oberosterreich. This was a half hour worth getting out of bed for and right from the first note of this piece you were in for a show. They opened with "Toccata E Fantasia" and this instantly said that business in this section had picked up. They followed with the very interesting test piece called "Little Christmas" by Elaine Agnew.
Hans Gansch playing "Born on the Fourth of July".
Following on from this the bands soprano cornet player Florian Klingler played Philip Sparke's "Capriccio". Then, the bands star player Hans Gansch who gave a simply awesome display playing "Born on the Fourth of July". At this stage there was no question that they had sealed victory but just to round off the performance the band played "Funky Brass", which featured Hans Gansch again with a funky solo. The band deservedly got a standing ovation for their performance.
Black Dyke Band getting to grips with the bottle section of "Extreme Make-over".
So the championship section bands then had the daunting task of following this quite spectacular performance. There really was some jaw dropping performances. Some of the highlight performances were "Riffs and Interludes" played by Eikanger of Norway, the newly commissioned piece "The Promised Land" played by Buy-as-you-view Band Cory, Black Dyke playing last year's test piece "Extreme Make-over" and also Brass Band Willebroek playing "The Journey to the Centre of the Earth". After this we were completely confused as to who would win; some said Black Dyke others said Cory and some said Eikanger but the contest was over and all that was left now was the closing gala concert and the results.
So to the gala concert which was opened by Black Dyke. They, to the disappointment of the crowd, only did a short programme the highlight of it being their stunning performance of "Riverdance" which featured some fancy footwork by both Richard Marshall (principal cornet) and John Doyle (flugelhorn). The gala concert after this was an average affair with some nice playing by Festival Brass and an interesting performance by a massive percussion ensemble.
The results are announced by Jappie Dijkstra.
The night's music was concluded by a performance of three movements from "Cry of the Celts". After this came the results and as expected Brass Band Oberosterreich won the B section but - to the surprise of some - Brass Band Willebroek won the championship section.
This concluded an amazing weekend and we returned to Drogheda satisfied with the weekend's entertainment.