BAND CONTEST.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20539, 14 February 1935, Page 11

BAND CONTEST.

Arrangements for Next Week. TIMARU PREPARES. For many months industrious committees have been preparing for the New Zealand Brass Band Contest which is to be held in Timaru next week. It is claimed by the organisers that when the members of twenty-five bands arrive in the town they will find Timaru ready with such a welcome as the importance of the occasion demands. For a full week Timaru will be thickly populated with bandsmen from as far south as Invercargill and as far north as Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay, and residents will enjoy a feast of the best brass band and pipe band music that the Dominion can supply. The Timaru committee, under the chairmanship of Mr G. J. Wallace, has made detailed arrangements for the contest, but it has not been content with that alone. It has also arranged for the entertainment of the visitors. Apart from the hospitality of the Timaru people themselves, facilities for bathing or playing tennis amid the beauties of Caroline Bay will be free to visiting bandsmen. All bowling greens will be available for bandsmen and their womenfolk—even shoes and bowls will be supplied. Transport on the municipal buses will be free. Most thoughtful of all these plans, however, is the appointment of a number of representative citizens to act as

“ fathers.” One of these guides and general mentors will be appointed to each band to make sure that its members enjoy their stay there. Bands Taking Part. On Saturday the New Zealand pipe band contest is to be staged, the competing bands being drawn from Wanganui, Dunedin, Christchurch, Fairlie, Timaru and Oamaru. The quickstep is to be held in the afternoon and the selections in the evening. On Monday the New Zealand brass bands contest will open and will continue throughout the week, concluding with the quickstep on the Saturday. The A grade bands taking part include the Invercargill Civic, Nelson Garrison, Palmerston North Garrison, Oamaru Municipal, Port Nicholson Silver, Queen Alexandra’s Own (Wanganui), St Kilda and Timaru Municipal. The B grade bands include the Artillery Band, Southern Command (Dunedin). Ashburton Silver, Christchurch Municipal, Gore Municipal, Greymouth Municipal, Palmerston North Silver, Taranaki Regimental, New Plymouth Municipal, Wellington Boys’ Institute and Westport Municipal. The hymn test will be held on Monday night, the B grade first test on Tuesday night and the second test on Thursday night. The first A grade test will be held on Wednesday night and the second test on Friday night. Entries for the solo sections are large, the B-flat cornet solo having attracted forty-five competitors and the E-flat tenor horn thirty-nine. In two or three other sections there are over thirty competitors. A Distinguished Judge.

! The musical judge will be Mr Albert H. Baile, distinguished conductor of the Newcastle Steelworks Band, which toured the world in 1924 and won the Bell Vue Champion Contest at Manchester, when 22 of England’s leading bands competed. Honours have fallen thick upon this outstanding musician, and he was recently appointed musical director of the City of Sydney Festival Band, a permanent band composed of 100 of the finest performers in New South Wales, which gave its first concert when his Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester visited Sydney in November last.

The assistant judge will be Mr E. Schnack. of Timaru, and the military judges Lieutenant-Colonel S. D. Mason, Captain W. Murphy, Sergeant-Majors A. Matheson and W. Edmonds.

An excellent souvenir programme’has been published. It is a most artistic production, and, as well as giving full details of the contest, the officials and the day-by-day programme, it includes a number of infra-red photographs of Timaru and Caroline Bay, with the snow-topped Alps in the background. There are also excellent photographs of the beauty spots and numerous attractions of the town and its environs. Timaru has a remarkable civic pride, demonstrated just now by the interest shown by everybody in making this contest a success. The local committee has been given every support and each band will be warmly welcomed on arrival as it is played from the railway station to its billets.