57 th NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL 2018 DATES Saturday 28 July Secondary School Events Percy Grainger Premier Event Sunday 29 July SYDNEY VENUES Secondary School Event Sydney Conservatorium Sunday 5 August of Music: Primary School Event - Verbrugghen Hall Alex Lithgow Premier Event - Music Workshop Sunday 12 August Primary School Event - Choral Assembly Hall Sunday 19 August UNSW Kensington: Primary School Event - Clancy Auditorium Sunday 26 August - Leighton Hall Primary School Event Sunday 2 September Primary & Secondary …a non-competitive, educational School Events and inspirational event. Proudly supported by: Jupiter Instruments Bondi Brass, Advancedlife Photography and UNSW Music Performance Unit Festival Patron RICHARD GILL AO NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL LTD ACN: 135 450 761 Directors: Nada George, Louise Goodchild, Paul Goodchild, Don Shearman Secretary: Louise Goodchild General Manager: Pat Devery Phone: 0417 664 472 Mailing Address: PO Box 833, Kensington 1465 Email: [email protected] Web: www.sbf.org.au NSW School Band Festival would like to acknowledge the Cadigal and Bedegal people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our performances take place. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging, and we extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are here with us today. The NSW School Band Festival is proudly supported by: Bondi Brass Bondi Brass 57TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL 1 2 56TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL CONTENTS Welcome from Festival Patron - Richard Gill AO 5 From The General Manager - Pat Devery 7 Event Criteria 8-10 Saturday 28 July Events - includes The “Percy Grainger” Event 11-13 Sunday 29 July Events 15-24 Sunday 5 August Events - Includes The “Alex Lithgow” Event 26-31 Sunday 12 August Events 32-37 Sunday 19 August Events 38-46 Sunday 26 August Events 49-52 Sunday 2 September Events 55-61 Adjudicators’ Profiles Dr Monte H Mumford 14 Gerald Steinmann 36 Paul Vickers 54 Dr Peter Loel Boonshaft 18 Chris Henzgen 42 Todd Wynyard 57 Dr John P Lynch 22 Jason Isaac 44 John Morrison 57 Joan Thorp 34 Michelle Leonard OAM 48 Articles Royal Australian Navy Band 17 The Admiral’s Own Big Band 25 Cliff Goodchild OAM Scholarship 47 NSW Public Schools Millennium Marching Band 58-59 Volunteer Profiles 64-65 A Quiz for the Young & A Quiz for the Young at Heart 66 Where were you in the… 67 NSW Band Festival Cryptic 68 NSW Band Festival Quick 69 9 Letter Word Puzzle 70 SUDOKU 71 Bondi Brass 72 57TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL 3 4 56TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL WELCOME FROM FESTIVAL PATRON RICHARD GILL AO It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 57th NSW School Band Festival. With over 320 entries from NSW, the ACT, Qld, Victoria and South Australia the Festival is fast becoming a national event. I would like to warmly welcome back Dr Peter Boonshaft and Monte Mumford as our chief adjudicators for the Grainger event and we also thank them for their efforts as clinicians at our recent Music Education Conference. It was great to see such a large number of Music Directors supporting the educational aims of the Festival. I would especially like to thank Nigel Price, a founding member of the Board of Directors, for his guidance Richard Gill AO and advice over the last ten years. As Nigel moves into retirement we welcome Ms Nada George as our newest Board Member. Nada has a strong corporate and financial background and we look forward to the energy and new ideas she will bring to the Board. It was encouraging to see the recent announcement by NSW Treasurer Perrottet for the $100 Creative Kids Rebate. We might finally have our politicians moving in the right direction. How much better would it be to see our government commit to appropriately funding the training of specialist music teachers who will pay our community back a thousand-fold by enriching the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. I note the recent push to ensure we have qualified maths and science teachers. All the evidence points to the study of music being no less, if not more, significant to a child’s learning outcomes. In closing, I offer my congratulations to the Music Directors for their efforts to provide this wonderful performance opportunity for their students. To the parents who support their children and school leadership teams with the vision and commitment to establish and grow their school band programs in the knowledge that music has the capacity to transform schools and transform lives, I say well done and continue the good work. And to the young musicians who are the centerpiece of the Festival, I commend your efforts and exhort you to continue your music making throughout your schooling and beyond. 57TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL 5 FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER PAT DEVERY Welcome to the 57th NSW School Band Festival. This year sees our first participating band from Victoria and we have four states and the ACT represented at the Festival. As Richard has mentioned in his foreword, this year sees the retirement of Nigel Price as a member of the Board. I would personally like to extend my gratitude to him for his astute advice and support as we have built the Festival over the last ten years. I look forward to working with his replacement, Nada George, as she takes up her new position on the Board. I would also like to pay tribute to the members of Bondi Brass and Pat Devery the Campbelltown Camden District Band for their continuing support of this event. Their efforts are a wonderful illustration of the collegial spirit of the Festival which is essential to its success. The SBF makes a donation to each of these bands to assist their ongoing contributions to the cultural life of their communities. This is in line with our philosophy of allocating our financial resources to appropriately remunerate musicians for their time and skills, especially the professional musicians and music educators we engage as adjudicators and for the many educational programs we run. It disheartens me, then, when I hear of schools failing to adequately remunerate Music Directors and tutors for their time, talent and skills, given the incredible contribution well run band programs make to schools. In some ways this is symptomatic of a broader lack of appreciation for the time, energy and sacrifice required to become a proficient musician. As Secretary of Bondi Brass, I recently had an approach from an event manager looking to source bands for major Sydney corporatized event taking place around the same time as the SBF. I politely inquired if he had a budget for any bands willing to take up the offer. The response: the event organisers ‘don’t put a huge value on that aspect of the event’ but he could give us exposure to more than 70,000 runners on the day! He did mention, however, that ‘if money was our sole focus’ he might be able to rustle up a few hundred dollars. I respectfully declined, noting musicians were no strangers to volunteering their services. As I considered the fact that an army of volunteers from the two aforementioned bands will be selflessly giving up their time over the next six weekends to ensure the success of the School Band Festival—many having done so for over four decades—I got to wondering, when major corporate events are put on, especially sporting events which already benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars of public infrastructure investment, why are the musicians invariably the ones asked to donate their services for free. I suspect they will pay $250 each for every portable toilet supplied along the running course on the day. They may not value our time and skills, but we do. Just as an observation, for the mere cost of a dollar per runner (1.3% of the adult entry fee) I could provide a band every 500 metres along the running course and still pay each group $2500.00, or 10 port-a-loos, whichever they prefer! I guess it just depends on your perspective. 57TH ANNUAL NSW SCHOOL BAND FESTIVAL 7 Event CRITERIA This overview of the event criteria provides parents, school leadership teams and general audience members with an insight into where their band currently sits in the broader school band context. The SBF is a non-competitive and educational event, therefore Music Directors are encouraged to select an event level which will challenge their ensemble and the individual musicians therein to continue developing their musical ability. We are aware that school ensembles change personnel from year to year. It is our expectation that schools consistently achieving gold ratings will look to challenge themselves by moving to a higher event level. Parents and school leadership teams should be aware that a band moving to a higher level may take a year or two to attain the standard capable of achieving a Gold award in that event category. It runs counter to the philosophy of the Festival for a school to select an event level below the ability of their ensemble in order to ensure a Gold award. Parents and school leadership teams are encouraged to support MDs in continually challenging the students as they mature the band program within their school. Since 2015 it has been mandatory for all bands participating in the NSW School Band Festival to perform an Australian music item at all Festival event levels. The rationale behind this is to promote a home grown Australian music culture and to support the many Australian artists who are currently composing and arranging for the wind band and big band media.