The musical outlook has been widened too, with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams seeing the commissioning of a fine new Championship work, 'Saints Triumphant' from Philip Wilby as well as a spring clean (courtesy of Phillip Littlemore) of his wonderful ‘Variations for Brass Band’.
Prof Philip Wilby has written the set-work, 'Saints Triumphant' Musical outlook These include the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and The Band of HM Marines (who provide a concert on Thursday evening), as well as the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Meanwhile, the European Youth Band, led by the acclaimed French conductor Florent Didier (its costs helped by a donation from a Norwegian multi-millionaire) has been utilised to act as a musical ambassador with its concert appearances, whilst important links have been made with other organisations. The securing of Arts Council England funding for an outdoor Community Stage to provide a performance focal point for community ensembles and bands has been a major boost – one that has come with the even more significant acknowledgment of the ‘national significance’ of the event as a whole for UK banding. The European Youth Championships, for too long a worthy if sparsely supported addendum to the main competitive menu has been brought forward to the Saturday morning, whilst the Gala Concert has been re-energised into the ‘festival’ climax of the weekend.
The European Youth Championships have been brought forward to the Saturday morning Re-energised In response, BBE has worked hard to make positive changes work and work well. It was a bold endorsement of self-confidence even if the ambition of their original cost-neutral proposal had to be tempered somewhat by having to accommodate the desire of EBBA to retain some of its more laudable, but expensive, ‘festival’ attractions. Bold endorsementĪnd so, with a financially fragile European Brass Band Association needing a solid foundation on which to build its post-Covid future, and with the brass banding infrastructures of Lithuania or Sweden understandably unable to offer a cast iron certainty of that, BBE stepped in to bring their event forward. When Covid-19 swept across Europe that plan became redundant. The European Championships were scheduled to be hosted at Sage Gateshead in 2024 – the third part of a four-year cycle that would have seen the event travel to Palanga, Malmo, England and Stavanger. It's not just the cosmetics that have changed
However, look a little more closely and everything has changed – and not just cosmetically either. The European Youth Championships are included once more whilst the European Youth Band and European Composers’ Competition hope to attract a more ‘occasional’ audience into the cultural heart of a welcoming city. It's almost as if the two-year Covid-19 hiatus (let alone the 15 years since it was last here) had never happened.ġ1 bands will compete for the Blue Riband Championship title, four for the Challenge Section accolade. The European Brass Band Festival returns to Birmingham with all the regular features and attractions once again in place.