The return of the King as B&R triumphs in Bradford late, late show

Kenneth Crookston reports from the Yorkshire Regional Championships in Bradford

David King led Brighouse and Rastrick back to winning ways in Bradford last Sunday night, as a weekend of thrills and spills at the Yorkshire Regional Championships drew to a close just after 11.00pm following one of St. George’s Hall’s most enthralling contests in recent years. Performing from the number five draw position, Professor King laid down the marker for the winning performance with a thrilling opening of George Lloyd’s English Heritage, a work that proved to be more than a worthy test for some of the finest bands in the country as they got this year’s regional qualifying rounds for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain off to the most dramatic of starts. Rhythmic clarity in the intricate semiquaver work, exquisite shaping of phrases and a full-blooded and wellbalanced band sound laid the foundations of what turned out to be the winning performance, although a few accidents along the way also gave adjudicators, Derek Broadbent and C. Brian Buckley, plenty to think about in their final deliberations. They also appeared to have taken their toll on some of the players who, at the end of the performance, were visibly disappointed, having made what many aficionados in the large and enthusiastic audience considered to be a slip or two too many to secure victory on a night, when the musical bar was set so highly by others. As ever, the conundrum for the adjudicators is finding the balance between the bands that make the biggest impression on them musically and those that best negotiate the technical challenges, but it is fair to say that, even among those whose eyebrows were raised highest when the results were announced, there was widespread acknowledgement that David King’s artistic contribution to the outcome was enormous, even if it wasn’t quite matched in execution by the band. To the victors, though, the spoils, and among the B&R players able to celebrate in their own inimitable style at the conclusion was the band’s solo euphonium player, Steve Walsh, recipient of the Adjudicators’ Instrumentalist Award, which is presented each year at Bradford in the memory of a former ‘giant’ of Brighouse and Rastrick’s organisation, Eddie Noble.