Brass Bands Northern Ireland were delighted to see the return of our Festival of Brass following a 3 year hiatus. This year’s event was hosted at The Maldron Hotel at Belfast International Airport and saw 7 bands provide high quality mini-concert performances to an eager audience.

Adjudicators Thomas Fountain (music) and John Ball (entertainment) were both highly impressed by the standard of performances on display across all sections.

Stylish

Dungannon Silver Band under the baton of Boris Pinto bagged the inaugural David Leonard Third Section trophy, inaugural Jeanette Morton Trophy for Best Horn Section and Best March award for their splendid rendition of Castell Caerffili. Dynamic Brass claimed the prize for Most Entertaining Band with their principal cornet David Johnson taking Best Soloist prize for his superbly stylish performance of John Doyle’s arrangement of Blue.

Clean-Sweep

CWA Brass earned a clean sweep in the second section under the baton of David Johnston, who was making his conducting debut. Along with the overall section prize they claimed the awards for Most Entertaining Band, Best March for a tight performance of the ever-tricky Knight Templar with Principal Trombone Bert Shaw taking the Best Soloist prize for Hoagy Carmichael’s ever-popular Stardust.

Tightly-Fought

Perhaps the tightest-fought section of all, 3 bands battled in the Championship Section to bring the day to a fitting close. In the end, 1^st Old Boys under the baton of Jonathan Corry romped home to claim the Harry Dalzell Section Trophy, Most Entertaining Band prize, with Principal Baritone Brian Downey taking the Best Soloist award for Alan Fernie’s absolutely lovely arrangement of Carrickfergus. Third Carrickfergus took the award for Best March for their spirited rendition of TJ Powell’s The Spacemen.

Thanks

The executive of BBNI would like to thank our bands for the sheer amount of talent which was on display and for supporting our event, which we hope will return next year in a much more invigorated fashion. We would also like to thank the staff at the Maldron Hotel for their support both leading up to the event and on the day. We couldn’t have done it without them.

Full Results

Adjudicators:

               Thomas Fountain (Music)

               John Ball (Entertainment)

Points = Music/Entertainment/Total

3^rd Section

1. Dungannon Silver Band (Boris Pinto)* 10/9/19
2. Dynamic Brass (Andrew Quiggan) 9/10/19

Most Entertaining Band: Dynamic Brass

Best March: Dynamic Brass – Castell Caerffili

Best Soloist: Dynamic Brass – David Johnson

Best Horn Section: Dungannon Silver Band

*In the event of a tie, music score takes precedence

2^nd Section

1. CWA Brass (David Johnston) 10/10/20
2. Comber Silver Band (Wesley Thompson) 9/9/18

Most Entertaining Band: CWA Brass

Best March: CWA Brass – Knight Templar

Best Soloist: CWA Brass – Bert Shaw

Championship Section

1. 1^st Old Boys’ Association Silver Band (Jonathan Corry) 10/10/20
2. Laganvale (Metal Technology) Band (Keith Anderson) 9/8/17
3. Third Carrickfergus Band (Brian Connolly) 8/9/17

Most Entertaining Band: 1^st Old Boys’

Best March: Third Carrickfergus Band – The Spacemen

Best Soloist: 1^st Old Boys’ – Nigel Downey