Academy Band

The chosen test piece was “Indian Summer” by Eric Ball.  At first there were some rolled eyeballs in some quarters about he choice but it did play to Chalford’s advantage in a slightly odd way.  Due to various reasons there were a few empty seats in the Academy line-up, notably right at the top with soprano and in the basses too.  However, nostalgia kicked in for some of previous players who wanted to play the piece again, so Braz and Wink came on board.  Testament not just to them , but to the whole band – the performance really improved in the last few weeks.

They were drawn first, so a 9am start on stage. The performance was a credit to everyone, and so the result was a bit of a surprise, not just to Chalford loyalists, but other bands’ players said so too.

Senior Band

When the rumours were flying around in late 2025 about possible championship section test pieces, Steve commented – “go listen to Elgar Variations, it’s a fantastic piece and I’d love to conduct it, but it’s hard”. He wasn’t wrong, it is a fantastic piece (if slightly lacking in any actual Elgar!) and yes, it is hard – debatably, one of the hardest pieces Chalford had taken on.

Steve came up with a Traitors based incentive scheme to encourage extra effort and rehearsals, although to be honest that wasn’t really necessary – everyone realised the size of the task and ad-hoc rehearsals  started straight after Christmas.  Added the to challenge were some late breaking player changes due to ill health.

The performance on the day wasn’t our best (as is often the case, we did that in the rehearsal the night before), but given the challenge, the fact we were on stage was a testament to the collective desire of the band not to let each other down.