Kingdom Youth Celebrate First Year
Kingdom Brass celebrated the first full year of their youth development initiative by holding a solo competition for members of the Kingdom Brass Youth Band.
14 of the band’s young players, aged from 8 to 12, performed to a large audience of parents, friends, supporters and members of the senior band.
Lee Bathgate, Chairman of the Kingdom Brass Youth Initiative, said of the event, “We’ve been planning a solo competition for our young players for a while, and felt the first anniversary of starting to teach through our youth policy was worthwhile timing. Last January all of these players were just starting to produce their first few notes, and now they’re performing solos in public, it’s a great achievement.”
Over the past year, the Kingdom Youth Band has grown from nothing to a flourishing youth band, with performances at Brass in the Park last August, and competing at the Scottish Youth Championships in Perth a few months ago. The band has also performed at several concerts recently, including a successful Christmas joint concert with the senior band, Kingdom Brass.
“We’re giving our young players every opportunity to perform in their own right as a youth band, as well as appearing alongside the senior band.” said Lee. “There’s obviously a huge distance from youth band to the Championship Section, but we want to inspire everyone involved in our youth band to reach that level, and solo competitions are just one piece of the jigsaw as far as we’re concerned.”
The Kingdom Brass Youth Solo Contest was won by cornet player Abby Young, playing “One Hand, One Heart” from “West Side Story”. Trombonist Liam Mullan was second with his performance of “Rule Britannia”, and 9 year old horn player Claire Miller was third playing the Tom Jones piece “It’s Not Unusual”, which brought the house down.
Adjudicator for the event was David Neil, conductor of Dunfermline Town Band, who had this to say about the event - “It was an absolute pleasure to adjudicate the Kingdom Brass Youth Solo Contest. The 14 young lads and lassies all equipped themselves admirably and it was obvious that a lot of hard work had gone into practising each of their pieces. The job was made very difficult by way of 6 individuals standing out that wee bit more than the rest and in the end the 3 prize winners came down to a bit of personal choice of how they had delivered their solo. The overall winner provided a very mature approach to note lengths, phrasing and shaping of her solo. That for me just gave her the edge. The level of the music chosen was just right and what was obvious from number 1 was that they all enjoyed playing in front of the audience. The contest was relaxed and well run and a very enjoyable morning was had, especially by me.”
