Ostend - a hard act to follow?

With the help of Ulf Rosenberg, the President of the European Brass Band Association, Kenneth Crookston looks
back on the recent European Brass Band Championships in Belgium and examines some of the issues arising from
international banding's biggest occasion.

In some respects, the European Brass Band Championships seem to get better every year. For recent evidence of this bold opening statement, consider Cory’s great performance of Brass Blót at Stavanger in 2008, as well as an outstandingly well-organised event. Similarly, the European Youth Brass Band (EYBB) performed at a level previously unachieved at Birmingham in 2007, while history might best remember the previous event in Belfast as first time a genuine contender for the European title itself emerged from the ‘B’ Section, in the shape of Brass Band Oberösterreich.

In keeping with the general theme of progress, anyone present in Ostend three weeks ago will surely agree that the standard of playing heard from 11 of Europe’s finest bands was among the finest ever at any brass band event. Even a brief look at the score of Jan Van der Roost’s fabulous test-piece, From Ancient Times, would have revealed a work containing such technical and musical challenges that many great bands of the past might have found unplayable, yet the international contenders rose to the occasion magnificently, providing an unforgettable aural feast that left the British members of the press contingent of the opinion that this was possibly the finest band contest they had ever witnessed. Similarly, in the Saturday own-choice section, the large audience in the Kursaal greeted every one of the 11 performances with the type of enthusiasm only ever experienced in the UK at the Last Night of the Proms, but with so many bands offering such good brass playing, this reaction was hardly surprising.

There were also encouraging signs of improvement in the ‘B’ Section, which had its largest and most widespread entry in years – evidence that, after 15 years, the European Brass Band Association’s (EBBA’s) vision for a continent-wide festival of banding may indeed be starting to take shape. Questions have been raised in the past about the role of the European Composers’ Competition (as well as other ‘fringe’ events) and, although it may have been a consequence of overchallenging repertoire, this year’s EYBB didn’t quite reach the heights that it has in its past two incarnations. All things considered, though, VLAMO (the Flemish Band Federation) can be rightly proud of its efforts in providing a European Brass Band Championships that ticked most of the necessary boxes, as well as providing some genuinely memorable experiences for all present.