Article by Adam Kingham - Musica Kirklees Area Manager:
Musica Holme Valley Big Band, Musica Colne Valley Big Band and Musica Youth Jazz ventured up to the North East yesterday (Sunday 1st March) to perform at the 17th Annual Great North Big Band Festival held in Chester-le-Street, County Durham.
This long standing festival is certainly a highlight in the performance calendar for our big bands. The festival runs throughout the weekend, showcasing big bands from all backgrounds, from adult bands, university bands, school bands and youth bands. Performers come from far and wide and this year as far as Edinburgh.
Our groups performed in the Youth Section on the Sunday afternoon. This fantastic platform for young big band and jazz players, whilst having a competitive element is a great opportunity to showcase our groups and share in a common interest and love for this genre and music.
Performing a 20 minute programme to a public audience and panel of adjudicators, we received some lovely feedback and received some Adjudicator Special awards too!
Daisy Cameron received an Adjudicator Special Award for her vocal performances with Musica Youth Jazz.
Musica Youth Jazz received the Adjudicator Special Award for the Best Programme (an award which the band have received previously)
Jordan Trickett, who also performed with another local band from Kirklees, Scissett Youth Band, received the Adjudicator Special Award for his Tuba playing with Scissett Youth Band.
All of our bands gave exemplary performances, which received some lovely comments from the adjudicators. As every they an absolute credit to Musica Kirklees and their respective music centres. Well done everyone!
We had a lovely day out and are already looking forward to next year!
