Entertainment
10 October, 2024
Cairns Brass wins the gold
THE mastery and excellence of the Cairns Brass Band was put under the spotlight at the NSW State Band Championships in late August where they took the gold ahead of six talented NSW bands.
The exceptional talent of Cairns’ musicians has once again been showcased by the Cairns Brass Band which, after 10 years of not competing at the NSW State Band Championships, returned to the competition and emerged victorious in the B grade category on August 24 and 25.
Brass band’s musical director Jon Christo said the band was extremely proud of the results especially after a 10-year break from the NSW competition.
“We competed with our number one band which has 32 members. These are our best of the best musicians from ages 13-70,” he said.
“We were one of six bands in the open B grade which is the second to top grade and all the other bands were from NSW.
“We’ve been to the NSW championships once before, 10 years ago to the day, we went in 2014 and won, and 10 years after we’ve won again.
“It’s not about the big trophy but more about the prestige that comes from winning such a big championship, everyone feels great about it, plus the bands that we defeated were very high-quality bands, in particular the band that came second from Sydney, so we’re puffing our chests a little bit.
“This gives us confidence and impetus to go to the next one.”
The band competed in three events with three different pieces, a hymn chant of their choice, a set test piece which all bands must perform and a major work of their choice.
“A lot goes into preparing for this both musically and logistically,” Mr Christo said.
“We rehearse weekly, coming closer to the competition twice a week. The musicians must practice their parts on their own as well but also, we don’t receive any financial support, so we look after our own accommodation, plane tickets so it’s a big effort.
“We feel great about this win – no other Queensland bands competed this time so to actually come away with it being the only Queensland band is amazing.
“We can’t celebrate for too long because we have to move on to the next thing and we have our major concert coming up in November which will showcase the championship winning band in a memorable concert performance.
“Tickets will go on sale soon for our concert coming up on November 9 at St Andrew’s’ ‘All Saints’ theatre, so come and listen to a local championship-winning band and see how talented our local musicians are.”
