The 159th British Open Brass Band Championships
August 5, 2011
At 10:30 am, on the 3rd September, the opening notes of this year’s British Open Brass Band Championships will be played. The British Open Championships, which began in 1853 at Belle Vue Manchester, is reputed to be the oldest surviving music competition in the world. In 1853 the first competition was held in the grounds of the Zoological Gardens and was attended by a crowd of over 16,000; a great success and consequently the event continued annually until 1981 at Belle Vue. Following the sale of Belle Vue, the Open moved to the free Trade Hall, Manchester, where it remained until 1996. Today, the British Open, as the one of the foremost competitions for the best brass bands in the UK, regularly attracts audiences of all age groups to the Symphony Hall, Birmingham where it moved to in 1997 and where the competition has subsequently thrived.
This year’s test piece making its UK contest debut is ‘Red Priest’ by the acclaimed international composer Philip Wilby, who describes it as “A Concerto after Vivaldi with special separations”; it includes four solo percussion parts and groupings of cornets and trombones spaced around the performance area. Listeners will recognise quotations from, amongst others, ‘The Four Seasons’, and Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’.
In recent years, the British Open Brass Band Championships has been a source of new music for the brass bands, written by established composers, which gone on to lift the profile and appeal of brass band music to wider and more diverse audiences time after time; it has also established a reputation for the commission of new test pieces which continues to this day. There has been a promise that the test piece for the 2012 British Open will be a new work which has already been commissioned. Future plans in the pipeline, for a new work in 2013, prove the Open’s continued commitment to the promotion of musical excellence and exciting brass music for its audiences.
Scores for ‘Red Priest’ are available from Prima Vista Musikk and tickets for the British Open are on sale from Symphony Hall Box Office.
