Time for change, or is 'status quo' the way forward?

by Kenneth Crookston

It’s only three weeks since I wrote in this publication about all the passion going out of brass band contesting, recalling the ‘good old days’, when adjudicators would be chased for their lives by defeated bandsmen, to be defended on the station platform by the winning band’s players. Thankfully, nothing ever happens like that nowadays - at least that was the case when we published that particular article. However, seven days later, events following the 157th British Open Championship in Birmingham appear to have precipitated the modern-day banding equivalent of World War III.

Whatever could be the problem? With a prize list comprising six of our current finest bands in Cory, Black Dyke, Grimethorpe Colliery, Leyland, Brighouse and Rastrick and Foden’s, surely the judges had done their job properly and there could be no issue with the result. I mean, it’s not like the old days at Belle Vue or the Free Trade Hall, when the booing would shake the hall to the rafters if the audience didn’t like the result, or when City of Coventry, Kennedy’s Swinton or Marple emerged as ‘surprise’ winners and the stunned silence pervading the vast auditorium was interrupted only by tiny corners of joy as the victors celebrated their newly-found, and short-lived, superstar status. No, this spat began when the renowned euphonium soloist, Steven Mead, who had just conducted Whitburn Band to an unexpectedly low 17th place at the contest, voiced his feelings about both the result and the general state of brass band adjudication, both to the event’s organisers and, subsequently, on his own website (www.euphonium.net), where he also berated the current apparent reluctance within banding to seek progress.

Among his numerous complaints, Steven Mead commented: ‘My beef lies with the fact that many of our adjudicators seem to have not enough powers to correctly assess a long list of bands after the obvious contenders. The criteria necessary to judge as many as 18 bands are not laid out clearly, leaving bands disaffected and bewildered.’ He added: ‘I think it’s time for an overhaul of the contest adjudication system, particularly with regard to selection and appraisal of judges, many of whom have been carrying out the same role for over 40 years. They, and the people who represent them, seem intent on maintaining the status quo, whilst the band world seems to need more fresh minds, people who are actually currently involved in music making at a high level.’ In a subsequent comment to BB, Steven Mead further added: “One of the problems with the Association of Brass Band Adjudicators (ABBA) is that there is no transparent or ongoing appraisal procedure for its members. Sitting in a box all day while concentrating on the fine detail of 20 or so performances is very demanding, but we regularly entrust this task to individuals who are of such an age that science has proven they will find it harder to focus on anything for extended periods than a younger person. In addition, every other competitive sport or art-form employs, at every level, some form of criteria for the people who are judging, but in brass banding this is never the case. I feel that we are falling a long way behind the rest of the musical world in this regard and need to address it before it’s too late. It’s simply not good enough, especially at a time when brass banding is haemorrhaging players and major events struggle to attract the audience numbers that they used to, to walk away from a contest and say ‘that’s banding’, without any real level of understanding being offered by the judges to the competitors or the audience. The time to act is here.”