high points and low points...

I thought that I would start off this post backing up about a week. There are afternoon concerts here at the RNCM, which I was part of last week. The college brass band was made up of some of the top players from all of the studios, and I was lucky enough to get to play Solo Euphonium in this group.

Pictured to the left is our entire euphonium and baritone section with Dr. Nicholas Childs who conducted the brass band that day. Cyril (the other euphonium player in the picture) and I were happy to get to play for such a fine conductor, while still being a bit apprehensive about the difficulty of the euphonium parts. The planets did seem to align last week for us, and everything came off great.

So last week Besses o' th' Barn was preparing for our first area competition. We rehearsed every night last week leading up to our performance on Sunday. We felt confident and ready for our performance, and were very happy with our playing after we came off stage. The judges, however deaf they are, were not so happy. The points didn't come out in our favor, but we did accomplish what we set out to do: to play the piece the best that we could, and to impress as many people while we were doing it.

While at the area competition, I did get to hear some other great bands and take in the trade show for a bit. It would be great if brass banding could generate the same following in the US as it has over here - it is really treated like a sport... with beer free flowing... ;)

This week has been really nice. Since last week was inundated with rehearsals and such, it was great to finally have some time to start preparing this final recital that I have to give at the end of May. I keep telling myself that I don't have that much time (even though I really do) in the hopes that I will be prepared before the actual recital and not stressing about my pieces...

Since we don't have Besses rehearsal this week I was able to go over and play with another brass band on Monday evening. One neat addition is that after the rehearsal I was asked to play two concerts this weekend with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, which is the band that the movie Brassed Off! is about. It really has been a dream of mine to get to play with one of these great bands - and luckily I was in the right place at the right time. Really, timing is everything... If I think back to pivotal moments in my life - timing really has a lot to do with it. Maybe it's fate or karma - but really, it's just plain luck!

One of my good friends Ray is a member of the euphonium studio at the RNCM. If you scroll back up to the picture, he is the one playing baritone - and he is from Taiwan. I think he is the first student from Taiwan to study in the euphonium department at the RNCM. He is a great guy, and always has his camera ready (insert stereotype here...). Just kidding! But, it is great that he is always taking pictures - because he shares them with all of us! Here are a few pictures that he took of me throughout our brass band rehearsals and performance.

Not exactly sure what I was saying when this picture was taken, but the tall guy in the red striped shirt is Cyril. Cyril is from Switzerland and he plays with Brighouse and Rastrick, who had a little better luck than Besses did last weekend (they won). Little known fact - Brighouse is the only band to ever have a top-40 hit.

You gotta love that pencil behind the ear. It's like a gun in the holster - always ready... ;)