Junior Symphonic Winds in National Concert Band Festival

Haberdashers Monmouth Junior Symphonic Winds took part in the finals of the National Concert Band Festival on the 10th April 2010.  This festival was held in the Adrian Boult concert hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music.  The students performed extremely well and were awarded a Gold Award.  Marking against a set of criteria showed the band to have improved considerably since its performance in the regional festival which was held here in Monmouth last Autumn.  It is a great privilege to be awarded gold at National Level. 

Tour to Barcelona July 2008

Haberdashers Monmouth Symphonic Winds enjoyed an amazing tour to Barcelona in the first week of the holidays (7th-13th July). The party numbered 37 band members (30 boys and 7 girls). Instruments, music, stands and a full percussion section went there and back without so much as a kit-stick being lost.

The schedule included 4 concerts on 4 successive days with a packed itinerary of excursions and visits organised around the concerts - a thoroughly good time was had by all who went.

The concerts were received with much enthusiasm everywhere and the music just got better and better. To mark their performances, the band was presented with a plaque by the Mayor of Lloret de Mar and a book of photographs by the Mayor of Pineda de Mar.

2007-08 was a particularly exciting year for SW and JSW – we have had the privilege of working with Philip Sparke as our ‘composer in residence’. Not only has he worked in rehearsal with both bands, he has written a piece tailor-made for each ensemble and conducted the premiere of both pieces in December 2007.