THE Central Band of the Royal New Zealand Air Force plays pop classics including YMCA, I’m a Believer, and even current chart hits from American TV show Glee.  What was originally a serious pastime has come a long way from its roots in 19th Century small-town England.
AND the fine tradition of brass banding is alive and kicking in Wellington. During the Industrial Revolution, coalmines and mills began to fund company bands to distract the working classes who were becoming increasingly politically minded and instigating disruptive rebellions around the country. It seemed to work. By the time 1860 rolled around, England was host to over 750 brass bands and the tradition was exported to New Zealand when the settlers headed south.
Today the Wellington region alone has nine bands across a number of different grades; they play concerts in their own areas and most get together to compete at the national competition each year.
Squadron Leader Owen Clarke is part of the Wellington brass band tradition. He grew up playing in bands in Dunedin and now conducts the RNZAF Central Band. The custom of brass bands is particularly prominent in Christchurch and on the West coast of the South Island, which he observes is historically a mining area.
“Brass bands have a long history - it’s always been a community thing,” says Clarke, who began violin at a young age and played in regional and national orchestras in his youth before beginning a music degree at Otago University. He then transferred to Victoria University in Wellington and completed a Bachelor of Music, majoring in performance trombone. He’s since played trombone with all the professional orchestras in the country as well as a number of classical and jazz musical ensembles. After a stint in Austria - where he worked as a white water rafting instructor  – he moved back home to New Zealand when he was offered the musical job with the Air Force, settling in Wellington in 2000.
“I was in the Territorials while studying so I was involved in the band back then,” says Clarke, who became interested in conducting at the end of university.
Now he’s xcited about conducting the RNZAF Band at the upcoming Air Force Proms concert. Some of his 65 musicians are full time professionals but many are students doing music at Massey or Victoria universities or attending jazz school. They’re not full timers like Clarke, though, they’re Territorials - and they are paid for practice and performance hours – that’s unusual, as it against the tradition of non-professionalism within brass circles. The smart blue uniform comes out for official occasions such as last week’s Rugby World Cup victory parade, Cathedral services and to welcome foreign dignitaries. A particularly formal uniform will come out of the cupboard for the Proms concert, says Clarke.
The RNZAF band, roughly twice the size as of most brass bands, is actually technically a symphonic band: brass, but “with all the extra bits,” says Clarke – it’s also got saxophones and a woodwind section and in an unorthodox twist they’ve added a drum kit and electric bass.
The musical repertoire of brass bands has substantially expanded as time has passed, says Clarke. Now, they’re upbeat, fun and they can play pop, not the sort of image that springs to mind for the kind of band that traditionally plays the more sombre hymns and marches.
Glenn Richards, Bandmaster of the over-125 year old Wellington Citadel Band of the Salvation Army says that there are massive resources for brass bands these days. Some of the music is written specifically for brass, whereas other music is just adapted when bands decide they’d like to play a particular tune, he says.
“We recently did an arrangement of Mamma Mia. You can find arrangements of all the classic and modern day rock and pop tunes, as well as anything you might hear by the symphony orchestras, for example,” Richards explains, “There are lots of websites for companies that arrange and stock music for brass bands.”
Richards confirms that there’s a bustling brass band scene in Wellington. The Salvation Army band plays at their own services and makes frequent visits to rest homes, hospitals and also to inmates in prisons, “to get among people who can’t get out to us.” The Sallies also run a music academy for school kids and 20 Wellington high school students are currently learning brass instruments and play in a junior brass band.
“There’s an increasing emphasis on brass in schools,” says Richards, “The kids are the next generation of the bands.”
The Sallies are concentrating on their upcoming Christmas programme that includes a carol service at the Town Hall in December. Wellington’s nine brass bands also get together at an all day event called Brass in the Park, held in Upper Hutt each February.
The Air Force Proms concert, Michael Fowler Centre, 2.30pm, November 6.
- Jennifer Nive