Worcestershire Youth Music Festival 2007 at Pershore High School Sunday 18th September.

(Very windy, torrential rain, miserable)

The distribution and reception of application forms, grading and matching students to tutors was well organised with efficient communication between all concerned but the usual very last minute finalisation did cause some anxiety in the week before the event. Catering by the High School was very good. It was noticeable that, whilst some sandwiches were left, all the cake went in the first few minutes! The excellent cooperation by the caretaking staff was much appreciated.

Both the sectional and full band rehearsals were very successful. The standard of coaching by the county tutors would be hard to improve upon and the enthusiastic response from the students resulted in a very impressive final concert – much appreciated by the family audience and the civic dignitaries who attended.

This year’s young composer, David Lee, produced a stirring piece entitled  entitled “Ahoy! Thar' be a storm a brewin'” with some quite tricky sections but the musicians, as expected, sailed through it with panache.

The recording this year instead of on CD, will be posted on our website to be downloaded by those computer literate youngsters.

Thanks go to Keith and Sheila Hemming who handled an occasionally chaotic registration with their usual calm and

competence and to the committee members who helped with the initial set up and stewarding throughout the day, also to Gerry Barnett who presided over the final concert.

And, of course, thanks to the tutors for maintaining an amazing standard of proficiency with the students, especially the boss, Nicky Daw who turned ninety three children of varying abilities into a competent brass band in one day.