The latest news from Peebles Burgh Silver Band

At The beginning of last month the Band had its first public engagement, with our new conductor Stevie Baird, when we played at a Songs of Praise evening in the Parish Church. The event was in aid of the Yorkhill Children’s Foundation and the Band was delighted to be able take part in what was a very successful evening for this worthwhile charity. It was also good to receive many compliments on our playing and, in particular, for our performance of Wagner’s “Elsa’s Procession to the Minster” which was our final piece.

Our “civic” duties continued later in April, when we presented a mini concert at the coffee evening in the Burgh Hall when the Beltane Principals were introduced. As always, the evening concluded with the Band leading the company in a spirited rendition of the Beltane Festal Song. It seems hard to believe that it will only be a few short weeks before the auld Burgh anthem will be ringing out on the streets as Beltane week gets underway!

The following day the Round Table held their annual mile of silver coins along the High Street. This year the proceeds went to the Band’s Development section to assist in sending the youngsters to the NYBBS residential music course in St Andrews. Peebles Round Table does a fantastic job in raising funds for organisations and projects in the town, and the Silver Band is extremely grateful that they chose to support our efforts in developing the musical abilities of our juniors. Our sincere thanks go to the Table for this marvellous effort.

Our first event in May will be playing at the Three Bridges Race on Sunday the 6th. Over the years the weather has been generally kind to us, so here’s hoping for a good day this year. The following Saturday we will be holding the second of this year’s coffee mornings which, as usual, will be in the Ex-Servicemen’s Club from 10 -12am. Our main event in May will be our Spring Concert which takes place on Friday 18th in the Burgh Hall. We normally try to have a theme for the music played at the concert, however on this occasion we will be playing an eclectic mix of pieces. If there is a distinguishing feature of the concert, then it is that we will feature a greater number of solo performances than usual as we showcase the depth of talent in the Band. Tickets (£5) are now on sale at Keystore or from any Band member.

And finally, our “marching season” gets underway on the last Saturday of the month when we attend Penicuik on Parade, and later in the afternoon we will be playing at the Alec Lucas Memorial Festival of Football in Whitestone Park.

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Earlier last month the Band travelled to Glenrothes to compete in the Third Section of the Scottish Brass Band Championships. Unfortunately, we did not play nearly as well as we can, and we were placed eighth out of eleven bands. Although the Band played reasonably well there were a number of technical issues, and the main problem, as identified by the adjudicators, was tuning and tonal quality. The Band put in a lot of practice hours however good intonation can be elusive and is often the first thing to suffer under contest conditions. Improvement of this aspect can only come about by increased individual and ensemble practice so we have our target for the next contest.

This contest was also the last time that we would be conducted by our musical director, Alex Knox. Alex has moved from Edinburgh to take up a new job in Alva and, although he was keen to stay with the Band, the travelling distance made this impossible. It’s a pity we couldn’t have given him a better send-off, however many thanks to Alex for the great work he has done with the Band and we wish him well in his new job. Fortuitously we have able to immediately appoint a new musical director in the person of Steven Baird. Like Alex he is an ex-military musician and has only recently retired from the Army and he has extensive experience in conducting brass bands. There will be more about Steven in future articles.

Since forming six months ago the Development Band has been extremely successful in winning Silver Awards in each of the three contests they have taken part in. This year, the Development Band is intending to work even harder and go for Gold at the Scottish Championships. As part of this process it is hoped that as many players as possible will be able to attend the annual residential course run by the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland (NYBBS).

NYBBS was founded in 1958 and runs a summer residential course for young brass and percussion players from all over Scotland. This is a great opportunity for the youngsters, not only to improve their own technical ability, but also to experience ensemble playing under the guidance of professional tutors and conductors.
The week-long residential course will be held at the University of St Andrews in August at a cost is £350 per student. To raise funds the Development Band will be playing Street Concerts on the High Street throughout March, April, May and June, as well as holding coffee mornings and other local events which will be advertised in the Community News. Equally if any individuals or businesses wish to support these youngsters, please get in touch with the Development Band via their conductor Daniel Williamson on 07850434282.
The senior Band has three public engagements this month when we will be leading the Palm Sunday “parade” from the Cross Kirk and in the evening we will be playing at a Songs of Praise service in the Parish Church. Later in the month we will be playing at the introduction of the Beltane principals in the Burgh Hall.

Christmas Concert - Costume Crackers!

Friday 9th December 2011 was the date for Peebles Burgh Silver Band to hold its annual Christmas Concert in the Burgh Hall. The main band led by Alex Knox was joined by the Junior Band, the Development Band and the choir from Kingsland Primary School.

The format this year consisted of three halves! Part One saw the senior band on stage performing a range of seasonally themed tunes including Christmas Piece, Christmas Adventure, Christmas Swingalong and Jingle Bells. There was also though a drum feature with Little Drummer Boy (or Carol of the Drum) highlighting the talents of Gary Couples, who was appropriately dressed as a little drummer boy. The crowd was equally impressed by Gary’s costume and drumming. This item was bettered only by two songs from the school choir led by Mrs Wallace. This part of the programme ended with good audience participation in a rendition of Jingle Bells by the combined band and choir.

Part Two featured the Junior Band led by Daniel T Ward playing a selection of festive tunes, demonstrating their continuing improvement.
Mrs Wallace then led the choir in a further two songs that displayed their range and ability to great effect. The choir is a credit to the school and their tutors.
This was followed the Development Band under the direction of Daniel Williamson who in his short period with them has introduced several changes to their style of play. This includes featuring soloists who this evening were brother and sister Mikkel and Yasmin Bottcher. Yasmin’s trombone sole was a version of the hymn ‘Who is He?’ with Mikkel following on euphonium with the Robbie Williams hit ‘She’s the One’. Overall this is a talented group of kids.

Part Three saw the main band return marching through the hall playing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ all dressed in various Christmas related costumes. We were then entertained in this part of the concert by elves, angels, shepherds and sheep, Christmas trees, a star, the Three Wise Men, Christmas puddings, a snowman, Rudolph and the little drummer boy. Even the conductor had morphed into Santa. The packed hall was then entertained with the song from The Snowman fairy tale, which regrettably included the band singing at one point. This was followed with a terrific solo by Erin Stevenson on base trombone. Erin dressed as Frosty the Snowman played Frosty the Snowman! The audience then played a full part in The 12 Days of Christmas before Gerry Kelly gave a vote of thanks and the concert ended with the 70’s hit from Slade, Merry Christmas Everybody.

A huge thank you to all who contributed to the evening whether you were in the audience, selling tickets, setting-up or selling refreshments.

Here are some pictures from the night. For the full picture gallery click here.

Mikkel & Dominic receiving their winners trophy from this years Scottish Youth Championships. Presented by Alan Fernie at our Christmas Concert.

MC Gerry Kelly leading the proceedings at the Christmas Concert

Erin 'Frosty' Stevenson performing her outstanding solo piece at the Christmas Concert

Sandy 'Jacob Marley' Hamilton getting into the spirit of the occasion.

Martyn 'Rudolph' Turnbull counting the days until Christmas Eve.

Fife Charities

The band took part in the Fife Charities Contest at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy on Saturday 8th October and finished a credible 13th out of 20 bands playing, not bad considering there were 2 Championship Section bands on just before us and a total of 5 on the day.

Autumn Concert

Friday 30th September 2011 saw a packed Burgh Hall resound to the sounds of Peebles Burgh Silver Band. The concert was PBSB’s contribution to the Borders Festival of Brass under the theme of ‘Best of British’.

Our Director Music, Alex Knox, put together a varied programme with the Welsh connection consisting of Suo Gan (A Welsh Lullaby), Delilah (made famous by Tom Jones!), Castell Coch (Red Castle) and Bendictus, a euphonium solo written by Karl Jenkins for David Childs and played by Rhona Musgrave). The selection from over the sea saw the band perform Irish Blessing, Londonderry Air (or Danny Boy), Lord of the Dance and Phil the Flutter’s Ball (sounds like Paddy McGinty’s Goat by Val Doonican!). From England we had Barnard Castle (a march), The Floral Dance (think of Terry Wogan on Top of The Pops), an extract from William Tell and You’ll Never Walk Alone. The Scottish element included Dimensions (by Scottish composer Peter Graham), a version of Amazing Grace and a selection of hornpipes played on the bagpipes by our Repiano Cornet, Paul Swan. He was joined by the band and there followed a joint rendition of Scotland the Brave.

“Dimensions” is the test piece we will be playing at Kirkcaldy this Saturday when we take part in the Fife Charities. Our thanks go to the audience for putting up with this technical rather than entertaining piece of music. Your forbearance gave the band an extra rehearsal in a stage environment for the competition and may just add a few points to our score at the weekend!

Interspersed we had the Junior & Development Bands. A few weeks ago we took the decision to split the then junior band into two groups. This is the result of swelling numbers and too wide a range of abilities to fit them all into one group. To be faced with this ‘problem’ is fantastic and credit must go to Alan Fernie and Iain Fleming for their work in the past to grow this section of the band. The Junior section is led by Daniel T Ward and he demonstrated the challenges faced by new players, their parents and close neighbours! The juniors then showed us what can be done with tuition and practice with a fine performance of the hymn Eudoxia, 'Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman,' (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to you and me), Postman Pat and the theme to Dad’s Army.

The Development Band is now led by Daniel Williamson (our Solo Horn player). After only a couple of weeks this group has worked really hard to obtain a Silver Award at Brass in the Park and put together a selection of music that echoed the Best of British theme. These were All Through the Night (Welsh folk song), Blaydon Races (Geordie folk song), Run (written by Scottish band Snow Patrol) and The Rose (covered by Irish boy band Westlife). The Rose was performed as a solo on euphonium by Mikkel Bottcher – a rising star and a name to watch out for!

The concert concluded with a sing-along ‘Wee Blether’ written by Alex Knox and containing a selection of traditional Scottish folk songs. After the vote of thanks from Gerry Kelly there was an encore with Paul back on bagpipes playing Scotland the Brave, Highland Laddie and The Black Bear along with the band.

A huge thank you to all who contributed to the evening by being there, selling tickets, setting-up or selling refreshments (Pat Murray). Our next engagement is the morning of Saturday 29th October outside The Castle Warehouse, weather permitting. Wrap up warm and say hello!

Below are some photos from the night taken by one of our Patrons, Stephen Mathieson from Off The Back Barbers. a huge thanks goes to Stephen for providing the pictures.

Spring Concert

Peebles Burgh Silver Band held its annual Spring Concert in the Burgh Hall on Friday 13th May. Far from being unlucky it was one of the best yet!

There was a varied collection of music from stage, film, traditional marches and chart hits. These included a compilation from Then Sound Of Music, Cavatina (Theme tune from The Deer Hunter), When The Saints Go marching In and Dont Stop Me Now (Queens hit from the 70's). The origins of the music covered most continents from America - American Trilogy, Africa - African Funk (penned by local composer Alan Fernie), Russia - Kalinka, Sweden - Swedish Folk Song and the Irish Choral Piece - Gaelic Blessing. This was supplemented by Daniel Williamsons moving Horn Solo 'Lark In The Clear Air' and a spirited Cornet Trio 'Trumpets Wild' Performed by David Stevenson, Morag Carrie and Diane Gillies.

The audience was further entertained when the band stopped playing and started singing midway throught When The Saints but had to step up their game when asked to sing throughout The Sound Of Music. I think the audience won the singing contest.

The Junior Band contributed magnificently towards the end of each half with Eye Of The Tiger, Portsmouth (March) Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius and their own version of When The Saints.

The Bands joined together to play traditional march Slaidburn and to round off the evening A Wee Blether which is a compilation of traditional songs penned by the Band's Musical Director, Alex Knox. The audience joined in with more hearty singing.

Our thanks go out to all those involved in putting the show together, to the audience and to the guest players. Your support is always gratefully received.

New Musical Director & Conductor

After four years with the band, Alan Fernie has resigned as Conductor to pursue his musical activities elsewhere in the Borders. Our thanks go to Alan for all his hard work with the band.

Alex Knox has been appointed as Musical Director and Conductor and we hope we will have a long and successful association with him. For a profile of Alex click here.

Scottish Championships

On Saturday 26th February the Band travelled to Perth to take part in the Scottish Championships. Competing in the Third Section we gained a very credible sixth place thus securing our presence in the Third Section for another year. The Band played Phillips Wilby's 'A Little Light Music' and although the adjudicators remarks were generally encouraging our tuning overall and 'untidiness' in the 4th movement in particular probably prevented us from being placed at least one band higher.