Sunday 12th March sees Dunston Silver Band competing at the North of England Brass Band Championships. For the first time in the band’s history we will be competing in the first section following our recent promotion from the second section. The contest takes place at the Gala Theatre in Durham City Centre from 10.00am.

The set test piece is Land of the Long White Cloud or Aotearoa by Philip Sparke. It is a wonderfully descriptive piece, written in 1979, depicting the landscape of New Zealand.  It was originally commissioned by the New Zealand Brass Band Association for their National Championships in 1980. Dunston Silver Band has been steadily working away on this piece since September, and it has brought a range of new challenges: from more complex textures to balance, faster passages to double tongue and more exposed solo lines for principal players.

Once again we have been wonderfully supported by our MD Aidan Hodgson who has really put us through our paces and helped us step up into the first section. We have also had the support of Reg Vardy Band and the fantastic Russell Gray.  We are very fortunate to welcome many new members of the band to the stage at this contest and a massive thank you to them for joining us and I hope you enjoy your first Area contest with Dunston! These include Heidi Wilkinson and Mike Walton on the cornet bench, Matthew Naylor on euphonium and Max Albert on percussion, We’d also like to thank Tom Cooke who will be playing with us on soprano cornet.

I will be incredibly proud to step onto the stage on Sunday with the best bunch of people who have given 110% into their preparations of this piece. I wish the very best of luck to all bands competing in the Area competitions – let’s make it a good one!

Blog post by Laura Foster, principal cornet