Scottish Open Championships 2005
The Scottish Open Championships took place on Sunday (27th November) at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. As in previous years the days events also incorporated the Scottish Youth Brass Band Championships. In an exciting new development this year the event also introduced two new contests for bands outwith the Championship section. The Scottish Challenge Shield contest involved bands from the 1st section and the Scottish Challenge Cup contest involved bands from the 2nd and 3rd sections. Also new for this year, all of the senior band contests were made own choice test piece events.
Starting the day in the main concert hall auditorium were Granite City Brass from Aberdeen competing in the Scottish Challenge Shield contest. This contest, inaugurated this year, saw five bands from the Scottish 1st section do battle. As well as the aforementioned Granite City the contest included Dalmellington, Clackmannan District Brass, Lochgelly and Dunaskin Doon. Adjudicating the contest were Nigel Boddice and Bryan Allen. The challenge shield itself is one of the oldest and certainly one of the most striking trophies belonging to the SBBA. It was last contested for in 1976 and was won then by the Newmains band. Taking the trophy home with them this year, and justifying their favourites tag, were the Dalmellington band from Ayrshire conducted by Archie Hutchison. The band are on a great run of form at present and add this trophy to those won at the FCBA Open and Brass in the Park. Finishing in second place were Granite City Brass, conducted by Edward Paley, just ahead of Clackmannan District Brass conducted by the great James Scott in third place.
In the other new contest this year ten 2nd, 3rd and 4th section bands competed for the Scottish Challenge Cup. The Scottish Challenge Cup is a brand new trophy and has been donated to the SBBA by current President Alan McLaren. The contest was adjudicated by Alan Hope and Steve Pritchard-Jones. The first band to win the Scottish Challenge Cup trophy were Dalkeith & Monktonhall Colliery, conducted by David McLeod. After a disappointing 2005 the band were delighted to kick off the new season with victory in Glasgow. Filling 2nd and 3rd places were a brace of bands from the Kingdom of Fife with Tullis Russell Mills (John Maines) taking 2nd place ahead of Dunfermline Town (David Neil) in 3rd. The Bon Accord B band from Aberdeen belied their 4th section status to take a well deserved 4th place ahead of several bands from higher sections.
And so to the main event itself ? the Scottish Open Championship. With an entry of seventeen bands from both sides of the Border it was going to be a very interesting contest. With all of the Scottish Championship section bands represented hopes were high for a home victory after Hepworth took the trophy over the border last year. The first band on stage in this years contest were former Champions the Scottish Co-op band (Frank Renton) complete with Roger Webster on principal cornet. The band gave a fine, if not perfect, performance of ?The Music of The Spheres?, a choice which was to prove popular amongst several bands here today. The adjudicators Richard Evans and David Horsfield were certainly going to have a difficult time with so many quality bands on show, and fourteen different test piece choices. Some of the highlights of the day from this writers view at least were Wingates exciting performance of ?Harmony Music? ably directed by Philip McCann; Whitburn band conducted by Andrew Duncan gave a fantastic performance of ?Concerto Grosso? which was unlucky to finish in sixth place; Graham O?Connor and Kingdom Brass gave a solid performance of ?Between The Moon and Mexico? with all of their soloists performing admirably; finally Carlton Main under the baton of Allan Ramsay gave one of the most exciting performances of the day on ?Masquerade?. At the end of the day though it?s the men in the box who make the decisions. They awarded the Scottish Open 2005 to the Fishburn Band (Ray Farr) for their performance of ?St Magnus?. Although it wasn?t a perfect performance the adjudicators felt that it was one of the most musical performances and had all the qualities they were looking for on the day. Following the Fishburn Band were Scottish contenders Kirkintilloch (Steve Bastable) whose performance of ?Music of the Spheres? was being tipped by many for the top prize. In third place were the SWT Woodfalls band (David Barringer) who also played ?Music of the Spheres?. Carlton Main (Allan Ramsay), Kirkintilloch Kelvin (Alistair Orr) and Whitburn (Andrew Duncan) finished 4th, 5th and 6th respectively.
So, a successful weekend for Fishburn band. After the disappointment of last year when the band were dumped on a cold Glasgow Street at 3am due to a fire in their hotel, they can now have happy memories of days out in Glasgow. It was a successful weekend too for the contest itself. The new initiatives brought in this year certainly seem to have paid dividends. The two new contests , the Challenge Shield and the Challenge Cup, provided a good standard of playing and were enjoyable listening for the audiences. Favourable comments were forthcoming from bands who competed in these contests, many praising the venue and the facilities. The decision to opt for own choice test piece contests was widely accepted by the bands and did provide variety for the audience. The Scottish Open has shown over the past three years that it has the potential to be the flagship event in the Scottish Brass Band calendar. It deserves to succeed, not least because of all the hard work put in by so many people behind the scenes to ensure success. There is no doubt that there was a completely different atmosphere in the concert hall this year. It was much better than in previous years, this could be down to the fact that there were many more people present this year due to the inclusion of the Challenge Shield and Challenge Cup contests. There was also a buzz created by the fact that many of the top bands chose to have guests of the highest calibre on show, Roger Webster, Michelle Ibbotson, Alan Hobbins and David Thornton to name a few. The SBBA congratulate all of the winners and look forward to another great days contesting next year.
