Jersey’s only competitive brass band put right the disappointment of relegation when they qualified for the national finals – and they are now hoping to raise thousands of pounds to attend.
Jersey Premier Brass won the London and Southern Counties qualifier in March.
But attending the final in Cheltenham in September is set to cost the band around £15,000.
“There’s hundreds of thousands of people across the world who are doing this week in, week out, and competing for big titles,” musical director Jay Mildren said.
Jersey Premier Brass would usually travel to the UK once a year for their qualifier, and their calendar is otherwise filled with local concerts. Most of them – barring a performance of The Snowman – are free for audiences.
“This year was the first year back in the second section since about 2006.
“We were quite disappointed to get relegated, but it gave us an opportunity to regroup.
“So when we went to Stevenage this year, in March, we had practiced for weeks and weeks, and we ended up winning, which was great.”
The 19 competing bands all played the same piece of music and judges hidden in a tent rank them based only on sound, without knowing which band is which.
With quite a few teachers in their midst, Jersey Premier Brass needed to get on a Sunday afternoon flight home – so the organisers allowed them to go first.
“Normally, you don’t win in the first position. You normally set the benchmark and the adjudicators will use that as a platform for marking against the other bands,” Mr Mildren said.
“We couldn’t be at the results. We had to get back to the airport, so we were at Gatwick check-in when we found out.
“We had left one of our trombone players at the event, so he stayed on the stage and I was on the phone to him.
“Just as we were checking in, they announced that we’d won. Everyone was jumping around and crying and doing whatever.
“It’s a massive sense of achievement when you get that result.”
The band is made up of teachers, finance workers, business owners, plumbers, gardeners and more – with the youngest members aged 17 and others who have been in the band for 30 or 40 years.
Joining the band has a relatively low price tag, at a monthly £25 membership fee. But this means that reserves aren’t enough to pay for their second trip in a year to a UK competition.
The trip would cost around £15,000, Mr Mildren said, including flights, accommodation, and entry fees.
“We did a couple of concerts in the last couple of weeks and we shake some buckets, so we got a few quid.
“We’re potentially going to be going around a couple of pubs on a Sunday afternoon.
“And I’ve offered to do a skydive, but I don’t know how that’s going to work out.”
Parishes and companies could potentially sponsor an individual player, he said, but paid-for concerts from a brass band are “a hard sell for audiences”.
They have also started live-streaming concerts, he said.
Meanwhile, the band are learning their competition piece – a new arrangement of a piece from the ballet Adam Bliss.
“It’s quite tricky – but then, it’s called a test piece for a reason.
“And all the bands are going to play it. Some people will get bits right, some people will get bits wrong. It’s all to do with the feel and stuff as well.
“We’re looking forward to going. We signed up to say we’re going, we’ve paid our entrance fee, so we’ve really got to make that push to get there.”
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