Local brass bastion shines at national champs

Trophies are crowding the shelves at the Takapuna band rooms of North Shore Brass, after a bumper haul at the national Brass Band Championships.

In its centennial year, the group took 70 musicians to Dunedin for three days of competition, returning last week with nine trophies, including one for a Sunnynook child prodigy on trumpet.

“One of our proudest moments was young Celine Wu, aged only eight, winning the Under 15 solo event for New Zealand,” said band president Owen Melhuish.

“The very next evening Matt Donaldson was crowned the New Zealand Junior Champion of Champions, playing sublimely on bass trombone.”

At just 15, Westlake Boys High School student and Wairau Valley resident Matt is one of the youngest musicians to have won the title.

The prized trophy has been in the band rooms since 2019, with Liam Wright having won it three times.

Celine’s skill on the cornet at the Devonport Anzac Day ceremony drew previous public attention to her preternatural talent, gaining her an MP’s award.

The Sunnynook Primary School pupil, who featured in the Observer’s Anzac Day coverage, is the youngest member of North Shore Brass, to which her mother also belongs. She has been playing with it for just over a year.

Melhuish said the organisation’s other junior and senior players did well in solo and ensemble events over three days of competition, with many placings.

Junior trophy winners were: Emily Sullivan, flugelhorn; Jenny Howe, cornet; and Harry Parker for both soprano cornet and slow melody.

The newly promoted North Shore Brass Academy Band performed admirably in the

National recognition... Celine Wu (left) and Matt Donaldson with trophies they won at the brass-band champs in Dunedin. Below: Celine playing The Last Post in Devonport on Anzac Day highly contested C grade, stepping up with a band comprising many students to win the sacred item (hymn tune), for which it took home the Ron Fenton Memorial Trophy.

It also claimed third place overall in the grade.

Meanwhile, in the event’s world-standard A-grade competition the North Shore Brass champion band of Auckland performed with merit under its director of music, Harmen Vanhoorne.

It placed a close second to reigning champions Wellington Brass, with its bass and tubas awarded the Jack McDonnell Memorial Trophy as best section.

“The wealth of silverware flown home is a real achievement for the band as a whole and a testament to all our members’ individual hard work and dedication,” Melhuish said.