Wantage Academy off to Cheltenham

Our third contesting band in the organisation, Wantage Academy, is unique in that it is a fluid

band comprising of youth players rising through the bands, adult learners and those that

have been in the top bands who no longer want to compete at that level, steered expertly by

musical director Nikki Jones. This fluidity can, at times, leaves us short of players,

particularly cornets, and we are incredibly grateful to all our deps for the contest, Steve and

Jude Chapman, Judith Atkins, Bruce Gallop and flugel player Katrina Lovell-Meade.

So what is contesting? All the bands are graded in to sections, a bit like the football league.

Each band in the section is then given the same piece to work on. On contest day all the

bands travel to Stevenage and a draw takes place to decide when each band will play. Two

adjudicators sit behind a curtain in the auditorium and judge each bands performance. In the

interest of fairness, they only know the number of the band. The fourth section had 17 bands

playing this year.

Our test piece for the fourth section was I Daedalus, written by Andrea Price which we

started to work on at the end of last year. Based on the Greek myth of Daedalus the inventor

and his ill-fated son Icarus. It had some difficult duplet rhythmic sections, double tonguing

and required the band to portray different emotions in each section. The plaintive lament

between the euphonium and horn, the warm interchange between father and son balanced

beautifully between the euphonium, cornet and flugel and the flight and fall section which

required the whole band to play interconnecting parts like cogs in a clock. It was a really

enjoyable piece to work on and has definitely raised the skill level of the band.

The hard work, dedication and precision of our fantastic MD Nikki to perfect the piece with

us, along with the commitment of the whole band, gained us a fantastic 3rd place and we are

off to the national finals in Cheltenham in September for the first time in the bands 12 year

history.

One of our youth players Tabitha on trombone commented

"I think contesting is a great experience that allows me to learn and develop with the band while also having the joys and hardships of winning and losing. Getting through to the finals for the first time was an amazing experience because it was everyone’s first time with Academy so we all had the opportunity to share our joy together."

We already know of one new adult learner who has been inspired to join WSB off the back of

our result at Stevenage. How fantastic!