NORTH OTAGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27569, 11 December 1950, Page 3

NORTH OTAGO

CONTEST MUSIC

Dominion B Grade Bands

The Oamaru Garrison Band has received the test music for the B Grade Dominion Championship which it intends defending at Wellington next April. The test selections are: '‘Ballet Music from William Tell ” (Rossini) and “ Sirius'” (Frank Wright). “ Sirius,” a new work named after the brightest star in the sky, takes the form of diversions on an original theme, and its sequence of movements is: Prelude, Theme, Variations on a Thematic Groundbass, Minuet (on a bass adapted from the Theme) and Trio, and Rondo. New also so far as brass bands are concerned is a sequence of time signatures in the third movement, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4. In the sixth movement there is 7/4 time. Mr Frank Wright, ex-cornet champion of Australia, professor of band conducting and scoring, Guildhall School of Music (London), judged the New Zealand brass band championships at Dunedin in 1932 and Wellington in 1949, and last year was adjudicator at Ballarat, his birthplace. " Sirius ” is a 1948 composition of his, and was the test piece at Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1949, at which he also judged. The music for the Hymn, Quickstep, Quartet, Duet, and all solos except the B flat Cornet Championship, which is an American composition, is own choice. The adjudicator for the Wellington contest' is Dr Denis Wright, BBC, head of the music department of the London Transcription Service.