West of England Regionals Approaching
Phoenix Brass are currently preparing for the annual West of England Regional brass band contest in Torquay. The contest takes place across the weekend of the 14th and 15th of March. Phoenix Brass will be competing in the second section on the Sunday with the section beginning at 10.00am. This no doubt means a rather early start for the band to arrive in time for a rehearsal in a nearby hotel. The test piece for the second section is 'Kingdom of Dragons' by Philip Harper. Please see the biographies below for the adjudicators of our secton, Jappie Dijkstra and Peter Bassano:
Jappie Dijkstra
Jappie Dijkstra was born in 1955 and grew up in a brass band environment starting to play from a very young age. For many years he was principal cornet of many bands and conducted both in Holland and in Germany.
He has adjudicated at several brass band contests in Europe including the 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999 and 2001 European Championships. He frequently travels abroad to conduct, adjudicate or lecture on brass band subjects.He is an active member of EBBA and is the head of the Music Commission for the organisation.
Peter Bassano
Peter Bassano has been active as a performer at the highest professional level for more than thirty years. He is descended from a family of Venetian wind players brought to England by King Henry VIII in 1540. He studied trombone and singing at the Royal College of Music, where, from 1978 until 2004 he was Professor of Trombone and Sackbut and for his last eleven years, Head of Brass.
He played the trombone with the Philharmonia Orchestra for more than twenty years, but retaining an interest in music outside of the standard symphonic repertoire playing in David Munrow`s Early Music Consort, the English Baroque Soloists, the Gabrieli Consort and His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts, London Sinfonieta, Beatles, Bee Gees, Pink Floyd, as well as the brass ensembles like Philip Jones and Equale Brass who made seven commercial recordings, toured world-wide, and commissioned twenty seven new works.
For more than two decades he has maintained a parallel career as a conductor having periods of study with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Elgar Howarth, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jorma Panula and Bramwell Tovey. He has been Music Director of Oxford University Sinfonietta, The Gentlemen of the Chappell, Royal College of Music Brass Ensemble and Wendover Choral Society.
He has appeared as guest conductor with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Hong Kong Academy, Imperial College, London University, National Youth Wind, RCM Symphony Orchestra, RCM Sinfonietta, Royal Omani, Ulster Youth orchestras. As a choral conductor he has lead the Charterhouse, Melbourne Philharmonic, RCM Chamber choirs.
As a brass specialist he has conducted Besses’ o’ th’ Barn, Brighouse and Rastrick, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Leyland Band, London Brass and Royal Philharmonic Brass. He was Music Director of the RCM Brass Ensemble and formed the first RCM Brass Band. He is currently MD of the Championship Section City of Cambridge Band.
In addition he has coached the brass sections of the Britten/Pears, Imperial College, London University, Royal Holloway, Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestras.
Peter Bassano has given master-classes at the Brisbane, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Paris, Sibelius (Helsinki), Stockholm, Sydney Conservatoires and lectured at Cambridge, Duke, Indiana, Open, Oxford, Salford, Queens and York Universities.
As an adjudicator and examiner Peter Bassano has adjudicated for the BBC Young Musician of the Year, EU Music Competitions for Youth, Royal Over-Seas League Competition, Brass Competitions at Birmingham Conservatoire, Charterhouse, Eton, RAM, the Championship Section of the Yorkshire Area Brass Band on which 4barsrest commented "...one of the best five minute speeches heard at any time at a brass band contest.
As an external examiner he has been engaged by nearly all of the UK conservatoires and for the past four years has been external examiner for all brass instruments at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Peter Bassano is a champion of new music having conducted numerous first performances including five brass band commissions. He has lectured at a number of well known universities and published research on topics as diverse as Beethoven, Byrd, Shakespeare and Veronese.
He is regular contributor to all brass journals and is currently writing a book on the trombone commissioned for the Menuhin Series of orchestral instruments.
Bands Competing in the 2nd Section
Bristol East & Kingswood (Dan Jones)
Brunel Brass (John Winterflood)
Cinderford (tba)
City of Bristol (Ceri Thomas)
Filton Concert Brass (Bryn James)
Forest of Dean Brass (Jack Smith)
Gillingham Silver (Alan MacRae)
Heyl Town (Derek Johnston)
Pendennis Brass (Steve Thomas)
Phoenix Brass (Crewkerne) (Paul Slator)
Shrewton Silver (Michael Dunford)
Solent Concert (Alf Hughes)
St Pinnock (tba)
Swindon Pegasus Brass (Mike Lock)
Wotton & District Silver (Dennis Grant)
Released On 24th Feb 2010
