On 28th November Pemberton band took part in the Scottish Open at Perth Concert Hall. The band performed here last year when St Magnus was used as the set test piece, but this year it was an own choice contest, so we decided to play Philip Sparke’s Music of the Spheres.

Playing from a number 14 draw the band performed to a rather empty concert hall, so it was hard to tell how our rendition of this fantastic piece came across.  However, listening to the adjudicators comments before the results made us think that we had the strengths and virtues they were looking for.  We were delighted to find out that Frank Renton & Philip Harper gave us 195 points and awarded us 2nd place behind American Band Fountain City.

Please read our adjudicators remarks.

1. Fountain City , Dr Joseph Parisi, 5, 198
(Dreams)
2. Pemberton Old Wigan DW, Mark Bentham, 14, 195
(Music of the Spheres)
3. Whitburn, Steven Mead, 17, 194
(Titan's Progress)
4. Co-op Funeralcare, Russell Gray, 8, 193
(Titan's Progress)
5. Kirkintilloch, Selmer Simonsen, 11, 191
(Titan's Progress)
6. Wire Brass, Paul Andrews, 16, 190
(Masquerade)
7. Marsden Silver Prize, Glyn Williams, 13, 189
(Rococo Variations)
8. Fishburn, Alan Morrison, 9, 188
(Journey to the Centre of Earth)
9. Unison Kinniel, Alan Ramsay, 4, 187
(Whitsun Wakes)
10. Bon Accord Silver, John Maines , 15, 186
(Journey to the Centre of Earth)
11. Kingdom Brass, Andrew Duncan, 10, 185
(Extreme Make Over)
12. United Co-op Milnrow, John Ward, 3, 184
(Paganini Variations)
13. Dalmellington, Ian Porthouse, 6, 183
(Dances & Alleluias)
14. Newtongrange, Nigel Boddice MBE, 1, 179
(A Lowry Sketchbook)
15. Kirbymoorside Brass, John Woodward, 7, 178
(The Essence of Time)
16. Kirkintilloch Kelvin Brass, Charles Keenan, 177
(Rienzi)
17. Easington Colliery, Roy Curran, 12, 176

Listen to final section of the performance.

On sat 17th October the Senior Band played in the National Finals of Great Britain at The Royal Albert Hall. The band were fully aware that it had been 102 years since Pemberton Old Band had qualified for the finals and with that in mind we took to the stage and enjoyed every moment of the experience.

The band was well prepared under Mark Bentham and drawn No16 we fancied our chances of knocking over some of the fancied contenders of the day. As we reached our final note the audience reaction and the positive feedback from our supporters and players from other bands had suggested we had done just that. However, come results time we were disappointed to find out that our performance had not found favour with the adjudicators and we were placed 19th . In typical “Pem” fashion we bounced back within a couple of hours and enjoyed the rest of our night in London .

After most contests the lasting memory is the result, be it good or bad, but after this contest, every player and supporter of the band will remember the performance and the feeling when 2000+ people in the Albert Hall cheered for Pemberton Band. This feeling has left us wanting more of the same, so bring on the North West Area 2010!!

To see all of the pictures from the Albert Hall click here.

To listen to an excerpt of our performance click play on the right.

On 10th October Pemberton Band were treated to a Youth Band Performance day. This is the 2nd Performance day of its type, were members of the Youth Band have the chance to get on their feet and perform a solo accompanied by John Don-Duncan. This is witnessed by family, friends and supported by the ‘B’ & Senior Band and is great opportunity for us all to see what talented young musicians we have in our organisation.

Well done to all eighteen members who took part and a big thanks to Helen & John Don-Duncan for organising the event.

The following members took part.

Nadia Singh, Charly-Dee Evans, Megan Brown, Abby Johnson, Emilia Singh, Bethany Evans, Lauren Barkley, Emma Barkley, Sophie Barkley, Grace Jeffers, Alice Ball, Gemma Riley, Caleb Nesmejanow, Alex Nesmejanow and Steve Marsh.

On the 4th of October the B band and the Youth band took part in Fleetwood Contest at the Marine Hall.

The silverware being proudly displayed below by the Youth Band is for the following achievements. The 1st picture is Lauren Barkley (aged 7), who won the Youngest Player award. Picture 2 Lauren is joined by other members of the Youth Band holding there 2nd prize Trophy. The final picture shows 4 families who took part and play in the B & Youth Band together. Ashley & Grace Jeffers , Leon, Alex & Caleb Nesmejanow , Sophie, Emma & Lauren Barkley and finally Laura & Barbara Grant .

For full results for Fleetwood Contest click here.

On Tues 13th October Pemberton Old Wigan Band will be having an open rehearsal ahead of our appearance at the National Finals.

The public are welcome to listen to the final preperation of Peter Graham's 'The Torchbearer' which will include a full run through.

The rehearsal will take place at St Matthews Church, Highfield, Wigan and starts at 8.00pm.  Admission is free.

On Sunday 20th September the senior band made the trip to Droitwich to take part in the Wychavon entertainment contest.

After our recent signings the band have been in good form and were feeling very confident of beating some higher ranked opposition with our well prepared programme.

Drawn No11, last band of the day we had to make the audience and more importantly the Adjudicator sit up and listen and we certainly did that with our opening piece Enter the Galaxies by Paul Lovatt Cooper.

Next up was our soloist Joanne Johnson, on a mission to keep her hands on the best soloist trophy from last years contest playing Mark Bentham’s fantastic arrangement of Fields of Gold made famous by Sting and Eva Cassidy.

Next it was time to change the mood with a march, The Middy by Kenneth J. Alford and a comedy item that featured four of our players taking some campanology (bell ringing). Mr Sandman by Leigh Baker featured Alec Banks, Dave Marsh, Dave McGlynn and Richard Johnson playing a variety of bells to the Sandman theme. Through the piece the bands percussion team aided by John Don-Duncan try to steal the show, but the bell ringers have the last laugh when they wheel a set of tubular bells from backstage to play the final phrase.

For our final item we played a Salvation Army item Credo by Lorne Barry. It was a grand ending to a very entertaining programme and as the band left the stage we were sure we could not have done much more to influence Welsh adjudicator Lloyd Landry.

After a quick change it was results time and the band were placed 3rd overall, and won the Best Percussion prize. Welsh band Tredegar were awarded 1st and Flowers were 2nd . Reading the remarks it was hard to find any criticism from the Welsh adjudicator and we were left scratching our heads for any constructive comments. We cannot complain too much as the results were inline with the rankings and MD Mark Bentham was more than happy with our performance.

The band are now working hard on our National Finals test piece The Torchbearer by Peter Graham and are relishing the chance to play against some of the worlds finest bands.

Click here for players Wychavon pics

Within the last week the final pieces of the jigsaw have slot into place in the senior band, and we have now filled our last two vacancies

Our first is Kieran Higham , who will be joining the band on Eb Bass. Kieran has transferred from the Longridge Band, but has spent the last few months playing for various other Championship section bands until we have welcomed him to Pemberton.

The second, Nicola Marsh is a more familiar face, as she will be joining from our very own ‘B’ Band. Self taught, Nicola has been playing in the ‘B’ Band since 2002 and now she has finished her studies at Aberystwyth University she will be adding to our Percussion team. Nicola is the latest in a line of success stories that have started their playing in the Junior Band, worked their way up through the ‘B’ Band and into the Senior Band. Other names include Carina Haliwell, Rhiannon Grant, Nicola Banks, Katie Littler, Adam Roby, Ashley Jeffers and now Nicola Marsh.

Well, it’s that time of year again when the school holiday’s are almost over and parents are rushing out to buy new uniforms and pencil cases etc. We were all hoping that summer would bring some sunshine this year…….but we were wrong.

Fortunately, the members of Pemberton Youth Band were given something to do while the rain fell and had extra band practice to attend. The Youth Band conducted and trained by John Don-Duncan have a regular well attended Saturday morning rehearsal. The children were keen to continue with the Saturday am practice through summer so John decided to have a session on a Tuesday too.

Mr Duncan would like to thank all the children and parents for their support in allowing these rehearsals to continue over the holidays and as ever, will welcome anyone who wants to attend on Saturday’s at 10.30am.

Shops, Gyms, a stadium and even a helicopter have all switched from JJB to DW in the last few months. Now add to that with our very own Pemberton Old Wigan Bands.

Dave Whelan’s new sport and leisure chain has agreed to sponsor the band after his old company, JJB sports was forced to pull the plug earlier this year.

The newly named Pemberton Old Wigan DW Band gave its first performance this week at a party celebrating the recently re-titled DW stadium’s 10 th anniversary.

Band Chairman Brian Haliwell expressed his gratitude to Mr Whelan saying: “ It was not a complete surprise when we heard that we were losing our JJB sponsorship given their financial situation, but to have someone like Mr Whelan waiting in the wings was very reassuring. Mr Whelan is a life-long brass band supporter and no mean trombone player”.

Mr Whelan said: “ Agreeing to sponsor the band was an easy decision to make. Wigan has a long and rich history of brass bands and this one is back up there with the best of them".

What a 1st week back it has been for the senior band. On our 1st rehearsal back we welcomed three players to the band (story below), and on the following rehearsal we secured the services of yet another.

We are delighted to welcome Andrew Oetegenn to the band who will be taking over our Solo Horn position. Scottish born Andrew moved to the North West in 2005 to study music at the Royal Northern College of Music. Only 2 months into his 1st term he accepted an offer to play 2nd horn at the famous Fairey Band. Andrew then worked his way through the rank and was given the opportunity to follow some great names taking the Solo Horn chair.

Andrew will be a strong addition to our soloist team and will be a great asset to Pemberton Band.

After a well earned summer break the senior band have have returned to some great news in the form of two new players and the return of a familiar face.  We are very pleased to announce that Matthew White will be joining the band on Solo Euphonium, Jason Nowell on Bass Trombone and Alan Wright is returning to our cornet section.

Matthew is 18 years of age and is studying music at the Royal Northern College of Music.  He is Solo Euphonium of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and has played for the Leyland Band for the last 3 years.

Jason has played at a high level of banding for several years and has taken part in all the major contests with the Yorkshire Imperial Band.  He is a real character and will be adding some experience to the section and to the band.

Finally, it is always nice to see a popular member of the band return after a twelve month break.  Alan wright played in the band previously for four years and will be slotting back into our cornet section.

Saturday 13th June and the three bands attended the St. Helens March and Hymn contest. Thankfully the weather was much kinder than the previous Friday and so there was a good audience for the day.

The senior band were awarded overall Champions of both the march and hymn contest, and the Youth band won the best march and hymn for the youth section.

Full results:

March:
1.PembertonOldWiganJJB(M.Bentham)
2.MarsdenSilver(G.Williams)
3.HaydockBrass(M.Quinn)
4.Rainford(N.Samuel)
5.BactiguardWireBrass(P.Andrews)
6.Greenall's(K.Stott)
7.Skelmersdale(J.Ludden)
8.Farnworth&Walkden(P.Ashley)
9.ValleyBrass(D.Chadwick)
10.Flixton(A.Hobbins)

11.PembertonOldWiganJJBYouth(J.DonDuncan)

12.EcclesBorough(LWebb)
13.ParrSt.Helens(R.Prescott)
14.PembertonOldWiganJJB'B'(P.Ashley)

15.WestLancashireYouth(G.Roberts)

Hymn Tune:
1.PembertonOldWiganJJB(M.Bentham)
2.MarsdenSilver(G.Williams)
3.Rainford(N.Samuel)
4.HaydockBrass(M.Quinn)
5.Greenall's(K.Stott)
6.BactiguardWireBrass(P.Andrews)
7.PembertonOldWiganJJBYouth(J.DonDuncan)
8.Skelmersdale(J.Ludden)
9.PembertonOldWiganJJB'B'(P.Ashley)
10.Farnworth&Walkden(P.Ashley)
11.ParrSt.Helens(R.Prescott)
12.Flixton(A.Hobbins)
13.ValleyBrass(D.Chadwick)
14.EcclesBorough(L.Webb)
15.WestLancsashireYouth(G.Roberts

Wet Whit Friday............

This year the senior band had decided to plan their route on the Tameside venues, playing The Wizard as their chosen contest march. Despite some very inclement conditions the band managed to complete all 11 venues and for their efforts were awarded 5th place overall.

This is undoubtedly the best result the band has had during the years that we have attended the contest.

Debut contest.......

The bands have been quite busy since the last update, entertaining at concerts and also busy at several contests.

The senior band, have probably been the busiest of the three bands. Two high profile set test piece contests, The Grand shield, held at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, on the 9th May and The All England Masters held at the Corn Exchange, Cambridge on 24th May.

The Grand Shield, Test piece this year was Contest Music, an excellent piece of music to test the bands, particularly the cornet section. The standard of the bands in this contest is of the highest standard and there were some excellent interpretations of the piece.

Pemberton played well overall but it wasn't to be our day and the judges placed the band 12th. The band felt this was a credible position for a debut performance in the Grand Shield and are looking forward to having another try next year with the hope of qualifying for the British Open

Masters of time..............

There was no time to rest and Mark and the band immediately commenced rehearsal on the test piece for the All England Masters, the chosen test piece being Masters of Time and Space. The band were delighted to be invited to this contest for the 1st time, and although it was short notice the band played an exciting and colorful interpretation of this complex work.  The band are please to announce that we have been invited back to compete next year to perform Percy Fletchers "An Epic Symphony"