Originally known as The Oxted and District Prize Band, taking part in contests goes right back in the history of our band. However, for many years from the seventies into the early 2000’s, the band had been away from the contest arena.
After some success in the late 2000’s, we returned to the contest stage at the 2017 Scaba Spring contest after a few years away and were very happy to come home with a good result. Playing in the 3rd Section we achieved 3rd place with our test piece, Music of a Legacy, and were excited to win the Best March, playing Spirit of Joy.
Following the closure of the Scaba registry, we now find ourselves without a grading, and therefore since 2018 we have taken part as an ungraded band at some of the Scaba contests. At the 2018 spring contest this found us in an ungraded section playing against two other local bands – we were delighted to come away with 1st place for both our march, Rosehill, and our test piece, Canadian Folk Song Suite. Our Musical Director, Darrell, also brought home the conductor’s prize, whilst our Principal Cornet, Kevin, won the ‘Best Instrumentalist’ prize (Kevin is pictured collecting his prize!)
In 2019, we decided to take part in the SCABA Autumn contest which just has two sections – A & B. We took part in the B section which allows for unregistered groups, youth bands, third and fourth section bands. On the day that turned out to be 6 bands, with some high quality competition and we were particularly excited to come home with a total of four prizes: Highest Placed Ungraded Band, Best Horn – Jacki, Best Euphonium – Ben and Best Percussion – Stephie and Geordie.
In 2023 we returned to contesting after Covid and took part in the SCABA Spring contest in Brighton. It was an unusual contest as it was open adjudication which meant that the adjudicator could see all of the bands competing instead of just hearing them from inside a box. We played the march Montreal Citadel followed by Peter Graham’s Dimensions. We were competing against higher section bands and unfortunately did not finish in the top three this time. However, we were delighted when our principal cornet, Kevin Adams, was awarded the prize for the most outstanding cornet player.
Oxted Band 