Winner of Community Band of the Year Award 2011 was Wantage Silver Band
During the Bands recent annual concert scaba Secretary Ian Carter gave a brief presentation about scaba and its activities and explained how the scaba Community Band of the Year award had been brought about in 2010 through the generous sponsorship of Enigma Air Conditioning who have provided an annual award of a trophy and a prize fund of £500 for the purchase of brass band music.
Eleven scaba member bands had submitted applications for the inaugural award and these had been adjudicated by a panel of judges drawn from the National Association of Brass Band Conductors (NABBC) at their Annual Convention in Whitburn at the beginning of April this year. The decision of the judges was to award the prize to the Wantage Silver Band and this was announced at the scaba Spring Contest.
scaba was delighted to have been invited to this annual concert of the Wantage Silver Band in order to present the trophy and invited Malcolm Thomson, Managing Director of Enigma Air Conditioning, to make the presentation to Wantage Silver Band’s Chairman, Eleanor Turner (see photo).
Wantage Silver Band is a large independent brass band organisation. It promotes brass playing, undertaking concerts, ceremonials, fetes and many other types of engagement. It also teaches brass and percussion playing to beginners of all ages, providing social as well as musical activities for players of every standard. In the year from April 2010 to March 2011 the Band played at over 130 engagements.
The award, sponsored by Enigma Air Conditioning, will provide much-needed funds towards the purchase of new music for all sections of the Band. In this way both the Band and its audiences will directly benefit from the Brass in the Community Award.
The annual concert featured the six bands from the Wantage Silver Band organisation, ranging from beginners to championship standard and a particular highlight was the massed-band item involving over 100 players – playing an aptly named piece ‘Wall of Sound’ obtained using the Award!
Wantage Silver thanked both scaba and Enigma for their recognition of their organisation and its ethos.
