Take away the strings and bring in a bit of sax and this is what you get. Photo: Supplied / West City Concert Band
You don't need a weather forecaster to tell you where the winds will be this weekend.
Wellington (of course!) is hosting the National Concert Band Festival, the annual gathering of the country's wind bands.
Basically a concert (or wind) band is an orchestra without strings.
James Bevin is this year's festival coordinator. He's also the president of the NZ Concert Bands Association.
James Bevin Photo: Supplied
Bevin spoke with RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump ahead of the gathering, which runs from 18-20 July at the Alan Gibbs Centre, Wellington College.
Crump wants to know if it's the concert band version of the recent national brass band championships.
More a celebration than a competition, Bevin says, though there will certainly be some fine playing, with one of the country's best concert bands - the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band - giving a gala concert on Saturday night.
Presenting a gala concert on Saturday night. Photo: Phil Smith
Bevin fell in love with concert bands as a teenager. From rural Hawkes Bay, Bevin was a boarder at high school. He wasn't that much into sport, nor was he that keen on the academic stuff, but felt right at home making music.
Proficient on both the bassoon and the saxophone, Bevin had double the opportunity to join a local concert band. He loved it.
What he loved most, along with the music, was the mix of backgrounds of his fellow musicians - from high school students to retirees.
When he moved to Dunedin to study Bevin saw no reason to stop and continued playing with concert bands in the southern city.
Now he's back in Hawkes Bay where he is a co-conductor of the Hastings-based Bay Cities' Symphonic Band, balancing his musical life with his professional work as an agricultural drone pilot.
James Bevin conducts Bay Cities' Symphonic Band. Photo: Supplied / Bay Cities' Symphonic Band
Bevin says wind bands are bouncing back after tough times during Covid, when a lot of high school students dropped out of playing an instrument.
He's hoping the experience of mixing and music-making with other wind players this weekend will encourage more younger musicians to keep playing.
