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KBM WINS the Victorian State Championships
Sat 22nd Aug
Hear Kew Band Melbourne playing Kenneth Downie's gentle and touching arrangement of the hymn tune In Perfect Peace. KBM won both the overall competition and the Hymn. Hawthorn Band won the Test piece closely followed by Kew.
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KBM runners up at ABC competition
Wed 26th Aug
For the fifth consecutive year, five band battled it out in front of a live audience of over 300 listeners and brass enthusiast. Brass Bands competing were; Darebin City Brass-Preston Band; Footscray Yarraville City Band; Kew Band Melbourne; Hawthorn Band and first time contenders; Boroondara Brass. Congratulation's to Boroondara Brass for being the 2009 Brass Band Competition winners.
Kew Band Melbourne kicked off the ABC's Evening Show Brass Band Competition with 3 fantastic pieces.
The band opened with the famous Stan Kenton tune Malaguena arranged by Black Dyke's principal tenor horn Sandy Smith. A surprise sax solo by a very talented year 9 boy from Wesley College Glen Waverley whipped the audience into a frenzy of energy and excitment.
KBM featured Ian (flugel horn) in a lovely rendition of Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez. At the age of three Rodrigo lost his sight almost completely as a result of an epidemic of diphtheria. As he himself was later to affirm, this event undoubtedly led to a vocation towards music. From the outset of his career Rodrigo wrote all his works in braille, dictating them subsequently to a copyist.
This arrangement of Concerto de Aranjuez was based on the version made famous by Grimethorpe Colliery Band in the film Brassed Off.
Kew Band ended their selection with with THE UNKNOWN, the final section from the A Grade Test piece Music of the Spheres. This section questions whether our continually expanding exploration of the universe will eventually lead to enlightenment or destruction. Philip Sparke the composer has based this piece on a theory, formulated by Pythagoras, that the cosmos was ruled by the same laws he had discovered that govern the ratios of note frequencies of the musical scale. (‘Harmonia’ in Ancient Greek, which means scale or tuning rather than harmony – Greek music was monophonic). He also believed that these ratios corresponded to the distances of the six known planets from the sun and that the planets each produced a musical note which combined to weave a continuous heavenly melody (which, unfortunately, we humans cannot hear). In this work, these six notes form the basis of the sections MUSIC OF THE SPHERES and HARMONIA.
After having won three years straight it was with some reluctance that Kew Band reliqinshed the red cornet trophy to be replaced by the runners up shield. -
Kew Band Melbourne in the latest VB advertisement
The Kew Band can be seen making a cameo appearance on the new VB television advertisement. Filmed on a cold, windy day in Ballarat in May, the ad was first aired at the start of the Ashes cricket series. The band greatly enjoyed the experience of making the ad, and would like to thank all the helpers from across the state who fleshed out the band to its larger than usual size. Keep an eye out for us in our old-style blue jackets when you're next watching TV!
