Nelson City Brass Band takes out regional contest

Nelson City Brass Band takes out regional contest

Nelson City Brass took an unexpected win at the Nelson-Marlborough West Coast regional brass competition over the weekend.

The C grade band won the overall competition with three first place wins, one second and one third in various sections.

Band secretary Wayne Jennens said the band had put in a lot of work but did not expect to place as highly as they did.

“Marlborough is always the top band, they are an A-grade band, Timaru are a B-grade band, we’re a C-grade band and so for us to actually beat Marlborough is quite an accomplishment,” he said.

“We were quite ecstatic. It certainly made all the hard work that we put in worthwhile.”

Jennens said the band’s overall score was 30 points ahead of some other bands, which was “unheard of”.

“We wanted to use it as a platform for the nationals, just to gauge where we were at so we certainly exceeded all expectations,” he said.

“It’s just a matter of keeping our feet on the ground, not getting too big headed over it. We’ve got to build from what we’ve achieved and go to the next level.”

Jennens said the band have been under new conductor Nigel Weeks who helped them to victory.

“Nigel’s been there since the beginning of this year and he’s made a huge difference.”

Competition adjudicator Kevin Dell said he was impressed by the “technical ability of the band, the quality of the sound they produced and the musicianship displayed”.

The band were excited to take the unexpected win but it seems beating Marlborough was the best part of the weekend.

“It was certainly quite an achievement, we’ve never beaten Marlborough in the competition, they’re two grades ahead of us,” Jennens said.

“Everyone’s come home on a high.”

Nelson City Brass now look to the national competition at Napier in July.

Article written by TASHA LEOV from Nelson Mail.