Music to our ears at the KBB Festival

St Cuthbert’s students shine at the prestigious weeklong competition

August saw the return of the KBB Festival, which each year, attracts some of New Zealand’s finest young musicians. From humble beginnings, the KBB Festival now sees over 4,500 students across 145 groups take part. More than 50 schools across the greater Auckland region, and beyond, participate in the event, which caters for orchestras, concert bands, jazz bands and chamber orchestras alike.

The festival itself is recognised for the quality of the music that the students play, which is a nod to both the commitment and talent of the all of the students and teachers involved. The KBB Festival certainly showcases high levels of skill, dedication and collaboration, and this year, our girls certainly ticked all of the boxes with their stellar performances. This year, we were lucky enough to have a number of groups able and excited to compete. Our Sebastian Squad and Black Watch Orchestra, both conducted by the fantastic Mark Bennett, performed wonderfully on and off the stage. Under conductor David Edmundson, the Stage Band and B Band both delivered most commendable performances. For the first time, we also entered Black Watch Strings as a non-competitive group. Conducted by Dragana Yelavich, this group was primarily made up of Year 7 and 8 students. It offered the younger participants a great insight into the competition.

Throughout the week, all of our bands performed to extremely high standards which demonstrated perfectly their commitment and flare. As is always the case at the KBB Festival, the calibre was high and competition was fierce, but our groups kept their cool throughout, and played their way to some outstanding results.

Impressively, St Cuthbert’s secured the top three places. Our Sebastian Squad took home gold with a pitch perfect performance. They were also invited to play at the Gala Concert on the Saturday night, which was an honour. In addition, the Stage Band took away the silver award, closely followed by Black Watch Orchestra who won the bronze. These are outstanding results which speak volumes about the sheer musical talent that we are lucky enough to boast at St Cuthbert’s. To every student and member of staff involved, a massive congratulations, and here’s to next year’s KBB Festival.

The beautiful images, that capture the atmosphere perfectly, were taken by Deane Cohen.