Brassbanned interviews the inimitable John Saunders - the Conductor and President of Warringah Concert Brass.
John discusses the preparation for Nationals 2012 - the repertoire, the rehearsal schedule, the permit players, the underwear and the brand new tuba section.
Check www.brassbanned.com for more exciting news, videos and words.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
[Music] here we are with John Saunders the conductor musical director and current president of waringa concert brass John how you going good team it’s very nice to uh be part of brass band and uh hopefully one of the more uninteresting interviews fingers crossed nothing too controversial comes out here now John tell us a little bit how’s weinger going in the preparation to
Nationals uh well if You’ asked me Monday night two weeks ago I would have said uh uh not good now I just say okay uh we have had a concert on uh Sunday last week and Monday night last week where things sort of started coming together a little bit so uh all we need to do is get a full
Bandit rehearsal and um we’ll be up there around the middle excellent and so you’d be happy with sort of a place in the middle as long as you don’t come last that’s all right or as long as you play good music on the day play your best you’ll be fairly happy I think uh you know what you generally aim for is to walk off stage and say that’s what we wanted to do but um if we can do that we’d be happy if we can do that we might you know come somewhere around seventh or eighth
I don’t I don’t know at the moment uh you know what the other bands are doing and how they’re fairing so uh uh you know we’ll just see what happens now I have very fond memories of a waringa performance from 2008 up at Fab in the entertainment section I think you guys really rocked it and we probably robbed not to win that do you guys do many concerts like that or a lot more sort of stage very serious sitting down concerts uh we mainly do sort of sit down concerts although we did incorporate a bit of our
Fab program into a concert we did last year for uh rotary we had good support happening last year from the rotary clubs uh were iner area and we put on a concert in one of the local RSL clubs that they organized and um we yeah included a bit of our choreography and our Fab program which went over quite well so that’s always uh a good thing it’s it’s hard sometimes to incorporate it into performances other than you know battle of the bands or
Fab or ER Keller but um yeah it worked well and gave us bit of uh bit of sort of few ideas for next time so um in terms of your band you mentioned getting a full band to rehearsals can be a bit of a struggle are you guys permitting in many players or you sort of covering most of the bases yourselves well we’ve actually got a full band
One permit one of our third cornat plays in our second band so she’s permitting to the senior band and we have one permit tuber player so basically our own band I was thinking on the way here who’s changed since last year I think we’ve got one one new cornate since last year um one new trombone and a whole new tuber section so uh that’s how the situation is for us so is that new tuber section for the better is it would you say um careful careful let’s say they’re working hard they’ve never played as a section before until about 3 weeks ago and uh two
Of them are actually uh very good trombone players that dabble a little bit on tuba and there’s a shortage of tuba players in our area so they volunteered to go on to tuber and they’re doing a good job right so uh I have uh a session in starting in at 3:00 today where I’m about to fog them for a couple of hours before full band rehearsal so hopefully we’ll stretch them off at the end it’ll be good excellent and tell us a little bit about the repertoire that you guys are presenting at
Nationals what are you doing for your own choice if you want to disclose that information well I’m happy to disclose it I uh um have chosen St Magnus which um is a very hard piece of music so we’ll just leave it at that no rose what what about the uh March and the hymn what are you playing for those ones uh rollway bet is our uh march by
Mr ode it’s uh bit of fun it’s got quite a bit in it and uh we enjoy playing it and our him tune is one of the uh lovely Salvation Army Arrangements uh his provision which of course features Bob at the very opening and throughout and uh it’s a lovely piece of music as well so we do enjoy our him tunes right is there anywhere in particular you’re thinking you might pick up points or somewhere that’s going to be your strength particularly throughout the competition uh definitely um the looks
Department absolutely um I think from behind I look quite good y so that’s always a few extra points for us what’s the uniform for you guys these days I mean there is talk and rumors going about that there will be a Fashions on the field um presentation a prize for the best dressed in the own choice section what do you guys wear on stage uh we’re just do basically the the black suit the white shirt the gold touch a red for the girls it’s uh it is more what’s underneath that that that or perhaps what isn’t occasionally the sections so to speak but
I can’t say I haven’t seen any but I’ve heard some bit of creaking on the seats when people move you know so there’s obviously some leather there somewhere right and you don’t go with the stripes down the pants like those um bit fancy South Australian bands do no no we don’t do anything that the South Australian bands do if at all possible understandable sorry kanen
I’m sure you guys will do a fantastic job Carri and uh who’s the conductor now is it Kevin yeah I think it is I think it is Kevin sorry I couldn’t come across an interview you guys don’t worry I’ll catch up with you at Nationals now John when can people see the band aside from Nationals do you have any concerts any tours planned or a website people should check out uh we have um anac day performance the dawn service on anac day at
Manley Dam you’re all welcome to come there that kicks off at about H us five so we’re happy to see any anyone and everyone from Brass Band down there uh our next performance will be on um April the 4th out at uh Retirement Village and anac service out there at the moment we’ve got nine solid blowers coming to that one so if anyone wants to come along and have a turtle there you’re more than welcome uh we can guarantee some good biscuits and uh tea for that one and in terms of the structure of waringa do you guys just have the one band or do
You have a couple of Junior bands feeding in how does that all work out yeah since uh 19 about 1989 we have had a youth band that uh has you know progressed up and down you with the fluctuations of kids being available in the area uh we’ve been in a grade for the last few years and um to a certain extent have struggled we’ve struggled to get a full band there um and last year we took the the step of um deciding to make that a senior
SE grade band entered in the senior CR grade at the states and played really well and the piece was was very nicely suited to the band and we had a few adults that came and helped out and uh that proved to be successful so this year we’ve entered basically a youth band with with five or six adults in it into the senior sea and they’re quite enjoying their piece the
Lake of the Moon which is a good funit bit of a film filmic sort of thing and uh the kids really enjoy it and uh it’s proving to be a good decision we got uh full band five five or six trombones and um yeah was good move so and one final thing I’ve heard that the Nationals next year will be across in
Perth are you guys up for the trip over there or just wait and see how it goes I think all of us would love to go to Perth um I’ve got a a friend over there Mr Young husband and um would be very happy to come over to his neck of the woods of course Finance is going to be the issue if anyone wants to throw a couple of dollars our way we’d be happy to say yes we’re definitely there but at the moment uh it’s a bit up in the air so uh we’ll see if there’s a nice benefactor comes our way shortly well
Fingers cross you guys can make it across there for next year and fingers cross you guys play as well as you possibly can next weekend down in Melbourne thanks Tim we’re certainly hoping to to give it a shot and uh we’ll know at the end of the day U it’s always good you were talking earlier with Bob about the
W’s we find having the W there is better when they read the points out we we have hope right till the end of the list and we’re not we’re not smashed right at the start you start with a and you I didn’t come anywhere the least they going down the list well we still could you know so it’s always nice to be at the bottom of the list there um so yeah we’ll we’ll hope to hopefully do our best and catch up with a few friends right thanks very much for joining us thanks team a
