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Towcester Studio Band… Coping with Lockdown!
| Author: Kevin Hawkins | Published: 29th September 2020 16:19 |
The members of TSB were used to meeting every Monday and Wednesday in the Bandroom to prepare music for contests, concerts and Fetes throughout the Spring and Summer season.
The past few months have been extremely challenging for the whole of society and whilst Towcester Studio Band (TSB) is a charitable amateur organisation, not being able to play music together has been enormously frustrating for everyone involved.
The members of TSB were used to meeting every Monday and Wednesday in the Bandroom to prepare music for contests, concerts and Fetes throughout the Spring and Summer season. Lockdown put a very sudden halt to all of our plans and soon after came the cancellation notices for all of the engagements that we had been booked for!
The Government guidelines have been followed precisely and it is only very recent news that allows the Band to rehearse again but in a very controlled and different environment. Because of the 2m spacing we can only accommodate 12 players in the Bandroom at any time. The full Band comprises 25-30 players! Wednesday 30th September 2020 will be the first trial rehearsal and the first opportunity for a group of 12 players to meet again and make music.
The committee and members are enormously grateful of the financial support received from The Arts Council and other Government schemes as the loss of the entire income stream for 2020 has proved quite challenging.
However amongst all of the daily challenges that everyone has been faced with, Band members both individually and collectively have continued to practice at home and convert their efforts into several ‘virtual’ performances.
Several members participated in the regular Thursday night ‘clap the NHS’ initiative, through playing and recording nominated pieces of music outside their homes at 8pm on Thursday’s. This proved very popular throughout the country and social media carried many performances by individuals and small family groups. From these early online videos came the idea to create a full Band virtual performance.
TSB, like many other Brass Bands and musical groups, seized the opportunity to encourage members to record/video their individual parts at home and send to the Band’s very own Sound & Video engineer, Mr Lyn Stoneman. Lyn used his new found skills to integrate twenty five playing contributions, plus that of our Musical Director Peter Wain waving his arms around, to produce a ‘virtual’ final performance video. The first effort was a well-known march Colonel Bogey and it received several thousand viewings on Facebook and similar platforms.
This reaction ignited enthusiasm to do more and an arrangement of The Beatles ‘Ticket to Ride’ song was second on the list. Both visual and audio effects were introduced in this piece with ‘station master’ Tom Stoneman giving a blinding performance on the train whistle!
In brass banding circles Whit Friday holds a very special place in the calendar. In normal times around 100 bands from across the UK and some from Europe converge on Saddleworth and Thameside areas, suburbs of Oldham, Manchester, to perform in the Whit Friday Marches contest. As the contest was cancelled due to Covid, the famous Foden’s Band decided to organise an online contest. For several weeks before Whit Friday, competing bands submitted their ‘virtual’ performances to the organising committee and on the day every contestants performance was streamed on YouTube.
TSB’s entry was When the Saints Go Marching In, which we thought was quite apt as several of the Band’s members are also supporters of Northampton Saints rugby.
Our efforts were liked by the judges and TSB, sporting their away strip of Black, Green & Gold, came a very creditable third in our section.
Following that notable achievement we then produced a fourth virtual piece, Clog Dance, and also participated in Towcester Midsummer Music which was brilliantly put together by the organising committee.
August is normally the month that St Lawrence Church is bedecked with wonderful flower arrangements, all part of the Flower Festival. The Band enjoys its annual commitment to play during the Sunday service but sadly that was another event that could not take place in 2020. However the team at St Lawrence also planned a ‘virtual’ event and so TSB pre-recorded the hymns and The Floral Dance, and these were again delivered via social platforms over the festival weekend.
During Lockdown the nation paid homage on VE and VJ Days and several members of the Band performed The Last Post and Reveille in their local communities. The stand out performance in Towcester was from Mark Limbert. Mark is the Soprano Cornet player but he also enjoys playing the Bugle. For both VE and VJ day Mark’s sonorous tone could be heard emanating from Bury Mount. Following his VJ Day performance he was interviewed by Cllr Richard Dallyn, current Mayor of Towcester, and Mark unveiled some very interesting history notes on the instrument that he played. Definitely worth searching YouTube for a listen.
At the end of August the Tollervey family were completing a rather special challenge in the hills of Shropshire! Penelope Tollervey plays the cornet in TSB but is multi-talented when it comes to all things music. Penelope plays the Trumpet, Violin, Ukulele and sings. Together with mum Mary, who is an accomplished Cellist, they decided to raise money for ‘Music for All’ charity by climbing seven Shropshire hills in seven days and playing a piece of music on the top of each hill.
On some days the weather was not kind! Their fundraising target was £777.77 and they absolutely smashed it. They are quite the musical family and again were regular supporters of the NHS and Key workers during the Thursday ‘clap’ nights. Penelope’s dad Nick has also played Tuba with TSB on many occasions. The sad footnote to this wonderful story is that TSB had to say farewell to Penelope in September as she headed off to start her first year at University. The Band looks forward to welcoming her back during holidays.
August Bank holiday was to have been the time that the Band embarked on its first overseas tour for several years. The tour was to be centred on Koblenz in the beautiful Rhineland area of Germany. With a touring party of forty people it was far too risky to go ahead with the itinerary this year and so after much consideration the tour was postponed and is now scheduled for the same time in 2021.
The highlight of the Band’s many ‘virtual performances’ came on Friday 18th September when we competed in the Cory Band online Championships 2020. Cory are a very famous Band from South Wales and they staged an online contest that featured 68 bands from all around the World. TSB were in Section three and the opposition came from South Korea, Australia, Germany, Wales and England. Our 10 minute programme comprised three pieces, Blaydon Races, David of the White Rock and Clogg Dance. Blaydon Races is a Euphonium Solo and featured our youngest player Ewan Rigby.
The performance was aired on Cory’s YouTube channel on 18th but the results were given on Saturday 26th. I’m delighted to report that TSB won three awards.
The Band were placed 3rd in Section 3, Ewan won the best soloist award and the Band were also awarded the best performance of a Welsh piece of music. This achievement in such challenging times was testament to the commitment, spirit and pure dedication of TSB’s membership.
Special thanks go to Lyn Stoneman for compiling the final video and masterminding our participation in this prestigious event.
I also must mention Ewan’s great achievement. He is a very quiet reserved young lad with a very special talent, and we are extremely pleased to have him in the Band and will strive to provide him with many more opportunities to showcase his talent!
All of us at TSB are really missing being able to play together but the serious frustration is reserved for the fact that we can’t perform in public and in particular entertain our very loyal supporters. Hopefully our community will move back to near normal in the coming months and once it is safe to do so, please be assured that Towcester Studio Band will do all it can to help celebrate coming out of what has been a very dark and challenging period.
If you are interested in supporting the Band through its charitable arm, Friends of Towcester Studio Band, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via our website www.towcesterstudioband.co.uk . Your support and help to recover from the challenges posed by Covid-19 will be invaluable.
All of our ‘virtual’ performances can also be accessed via the website, or you can search for us on YouTube, we hope that you enjoy TSB in Lockdown!
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