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News 2008 |
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27th December 2008 A Christmas Carol & Other Festive Favourites On Thursday 18th December, Staines Brass held their annual Christmas Concert at St Peter's Church. The band opened with 'Joy To The World' & carried on with many festive numbers & featured a handful of soloists. Jo Matthews, Principal Cornet, treated the audience to a wonderful performance of 'The Rocking Carol', whilst Richard Pemberton, Flugel Horn, delighted with 'Away In A Manger'. The final item in the first half of the programme was 'Three King Swing' which featured Jason Pickin on trumpet. During the second half, Matt Gray performed 'Frosty The Snowman' on Bass Trombone whilst the final soloist was Neil Wharton, Euphonium, with a lyrical rendition of 'O Holy Night'. Many of the audience commented on how much they enjoyed the evenings entertainment & will hopefully be back again at St Peter's on Thursday 19th February 2009 for our next concert. Also during the evening, the inaugural draw for the 'Friends of Staines Brass & Staines Lammas Band' took place. The winners can be seen on the 'Friends' page.
24th December 2008 Staines Brass would like to wish everyone 'A Very Merry Christmas'
18th December 2008 Christmas Concert
8th December 2008 Christmas Number One?
7th December 2008 Christmas Concert The band will be performing its annual Christmas concert hosted by the Wraysbury Music Society tonight at the Wraysbury Village Halls. The concert starts at 7.00 pm & tickets are available on the door. See the Engagements page for further details.
16th November 2008 Santa Parade
The band then played carols & Christmas music for an hour to the hardened shoppers.
6th November 2008 Engagement Details Further details of our forthcoming events in 2008 can now be found on our Engagements page.
4th November 2008 World Rankings & Welcome Back Thanks to our recent 3rd placing at the Wychavon Festival of Brass, our current world ranking position courtesy of 4barsrest.com is now 93rd having moved up 17 places. It was also great to see Steve Kowalenko (cornet) back at band rehearsal last night following his recent hernia operation.
12th October 2008 Website Back Up & Running We're back online after a break of nearly a year due to technical difficulties. Hopefully these have been remedied & for those who have visited our site before may have noticed that we are now .co.uk!!
21st September 2008 Wychavon Festival of Brass It's many years since the band last took part in the Wychavon Entertainment Contest in Pershore, Gloucestershire. Many thanks go to Bob Howell (Trustee) who kindly paid for a coach for the band to travel up together. Of course, Bob & Pat tagged along & were invaluable supporters. After a rehearsal in the bandroom, the band set off on our fantastic coach & arrived at the venue in just under 2 1/2 hours. The band was last to take the stage at 8.00 pm & it was great to have a large audience to perform to. We started our programme with the march 'Emblem of Unity', followed by Susan White performing the trombone solo 'Brasilia'. The next piece drew a few gasps of appreciation when Melvin announced that it was to be the old fifties number 'Zambezi' & they certainly seemed to enjoy our rendition. The penultimate item was 'The Lord Bless You And Keep You', a beautiful arrangement which was used at both Jo, principal cornet, & Melvin & Susan's wedding. After such a quiet & slow piece, the next, & final piece, was certainly a contrast. We chose to finish with the last section of 'Dances And Arias'. After a shaky start but quick recovery, the band ended the 20 minute programme in great style. After a short wait, the results & prizes were announced & the band was ecstatic to discover that we had achieved a fantastic 3rd place with 194 points, just behind 2nd place JJB Pemberton Old Band who gained 195 points. Tradegar took pole position with a stunning 198 points. The good news was that there 4 clear points between ourselves & the band that finished 4th. Bob Howell had the honour of collecting the Allen Gears Cup on behalf of the band & as you can see from the photo, he certainly looks happy to do so!
This is the 1st contest for over 2 years that the band has entered into other than the Regional Finals & everyone was extremely pleased with the result. This certainly feels like the beginning of the rebuilding of Staines Brass.
4th September 2008 Proms At St Peter's
Anthony Sommerville
30th August 2008 Congratulations
Our congratulations &
best wishes go out to Jo Mathews (principal cornet) who got
married to Krissy on the 30th of this month. Looking at some
of the photos
27th July 2008
Pots &
Pans In The Park '08 Pots & Pans In The Park was such a success in 2007 that we decided to host the event again in 2008. Fingers were crossed for the sun to shine on us once more which it certainly did. In fact, this was probably the first & last day of our great British summer. The park was full to capacity & there were many eager participants. Yet again, the Hosepipe Gallop went down especially well & Ceri Williams was most entertaining with his performance of 'Bass In The Ballroom'.
June 2008 Olympic Tribute & Well Done Jason
Jason Pickin, Staines Band Manager, gains a Master of Arts degree in Music Performance from Salford University. For his final dissertation, Jason decided to entitle his 'The Psychological Pressures & Motivational Effects on Musicians Involved in Amateur Brass Bands'. This must surely be a subject he is all too familiar with!! It was a long slog but the hard work paid off.
May 2008 Bad News & Fast News The band should have been competing for the Senior Trophy at the Spring Festival held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Unfortunately, several players could not attend forcing us to withdraw from the competition. It is always sad when the band is unable to participate in such events, especially as this competition is by invite only. 2010 will hopefully see our return as this prestigious occasion. On Sunday 25th May, our very own running man Steve Kowalenko competed in the Edinburgh Marathon. This time finishing in 3 hours 15 minutes 24 seconds. Well done Steve.
April 2008 Marathon Man & Another Band Baby
Congratulations go to Steve Kowalenko (cornet) who ran the London Marathon in 3 hours 7 minutes 55 seconds.
Danielle
St Clair Tracy (percussion) gave birth on 17th April to her
second son Thomas, weighing in at
8lb 4oz. A
massive congratulations to Danielle & John. We're all sure that
it won't be long until Thomas is on the timpani just like big
brother Robert (see the photos in our Kids Corner gallery!!)
March 2008 Regionals & Birth Congratulations Due to the band having to withdraw from the Regional Finals in 2007, it was essential that the band achieved a result within the top 6 to maintain our championship status. After just a couple of weeks under the baton of Melvin White, the band played 'Festival Music' by Eric Ball extremely well & came a very respectable 5th out of 12. This result keeps us in the Championship Section. We just need to get a equally good result next year!! During this time, we had 2 very expectant mothers!! Zoe Bailey (cornet) & Danielle St Clair Tracy (percussion). Danielle managed to make it on stage for the contest, but Zoe was too close to her due date.
Fleur aged 6 months with Dad James & Mum Zoe
February 2008 New Musical Director
Staines Brass is very pleased to secure the services of Melvin White. A very well known & respected member of the banding world, with a impeccable record of success.
January 2008 Parting Company
The New Year saw a new start for the band. After 6 years of loyal service, we saw the departure of our Musical Director Ian McElligott. The band felt that a change in direction was needed to move forward. Ian has since taken up the role of MD with Sandhurst Silver Band & we all wish him the very best of luck.
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Staines
Brass will be hosting their annual Christmas Concert at St
Peter's Church, Laleham Road, Staines, this evening. The concert
starts at 7.30pm & tickets are priced at £7 & are available on
the door. During the concert, we will also be carrying out the
inaugural prize draw for the '
Could
Jo Mathews, Principal Cornet, be the next Christmas number one?
19 year old jazz singer Victoria Hart recorded the hit Santa
Baby, originally made famous by Marilyn Monroe, accompanied by
the Household Division Big Band & is launching her
challenge for the Christmas number one slot. On the 8th December
the single will be available to download and will be available
on general release in a store near you on the 15th December. All
the proceeds are going to the army charity the "
Staines Brass were very
honoured to be asked to lead the Santa Parade through Staines
town centre earlier today. Santa was pulled along in his sleigh
by his reindeer & was escorted by elves, a giant snowman & a
huge mouse on steroids! Unfortunately, we don't have any
evidence of these mystical creatures but we do have plenty of
pictures of the band in the 
We
have just recently been back to St Peters church to host a Proms
style concert. The band played a selection of music from around
the British Isles. 'Riverdance' & 'The Londonderry Air' to
represent Ireland, 3 movements from the suite 'Day Of The
Dragon' for Wales, 'English Folk Song Suite' as a tribute to the
50th anniversary since the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Although we didn't play a piece to represent Scotland, we did
play something by a Scottish composer & one of our soloists was
Susan White (trombone) who hails from Scotland. Playing a
fantastic piece entitled 'Brilante', which is a fantasy based on
'Rule Britannia', was our guest soloist Anthony Sommerville
(euphonium).
The
evening rounded off with the obligatory 'Jerusalem', 'British
Sea Songs' & Elgar's 'Pomp & Circumstance No 1'. The audience
thoroughly enjoyed the evening's entertainment & it was a great
pleasure to see such enthusiastic flag waving patriotic crowd!!
Our encore piece was the ever popular 'Radetzky March'.
from
Jo & Krissy's big day, maybe we have finally found a
sponsor for the band!!! 
The band hosted an Olympic
Tribute concert at St Peters church where we featured pieces
that related directly to the Olympics games or linked to cities
that have hosted the event. Pieces included 'Olympic Fanfare &
Theme' (John Williams), 'Shine As A Light' (Peter Graham) &
'Brasilia' (Robin Dewhurst). Featured soloists were Susan White
(trombone), Jason Pickin (cornet) & Richard Pemberton (flugel).
In
fact it wasn't long
until Zoe gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Fleur Elizabeth on
18th March just 2 days after the contest, weighing in at 7lb
10oz.
Fleur is Zoe & James' 1st child together & all the band welcome
her into our little banding family.
