Pride and Prejudice
(2006) Questions and Answers about Eikanger....
1. How did your relationship with the band begin back in 1986?
I went over to do a weekend's rehearsals at the Band's invitation. The result was that they asked me to conduct them at the next Norwegian championships the following February, 87. The Band won that contest and so began regular contact.
2. In what state was the band when you began work?
It was at a level more or less equal to the other good Norwegian bands, which at this point was well below that of UK. Good individuals here and there but no real understanding of what was needed to make any kind of progress. The person who met me at the airport warned me that I must be much more... er... 'delicate' … with Norwegian bands than with an English band, as in Norway they didn't like any kind of the threatening behaviour so well known in UK banding! I asked the person to whom I was talking if progress was what was really wanted, to which he replied “of course”. My private response to this was, “of course”, with an inner grin. The first lucky person to catch my attention was, I found out later, the Band Chairman (a rather limp 3rd cornet). In the spirit of playing the game, Scandinavian style, and rather than using my normal direct manner, I was very polite and told him that his lack of attention interested me somewhat negatively. (Short silence) I said that if he was lucky enough to be in one of my UK bands, he wouldn’t be. (Slightly longer silence) “I would have fired you within a couple of minutes of starting the rehearsal.” (Another short silence in which I smiled in a very friendly manner.) He sat up as straight as he could and disappeared at the interval. After that we all got on fine: the person who had suggested that I be caring and loving in my approach was of course talking his own special brand of tosh! Probably still is, as far as I know, to anyone who will listen. (Important Man, I am told.) From that day to this I have never held back on what I thought and the Band has dealt with it perfectly happily.
3. When was the band founded? (sorry, I should know this, but I don't)
Don’t know.
4. Apart from yourself, who are the regular conductors?
Reid Gilje is the MD, a fine conductor, arranger and top-class flugel soloist. He keeps the Band at a very high level with a very light touch and no small amount of quiet savvy. I hold him in very high regard. Various guests work with the Band on separate projects and contests.
5. In your development of the band, on what areas did you need to concentrate ?
This is a huge subject! (Deep breath.) Poor bands are poor for one over-arching reason: the players can’t hear! They may be personally intelligent in real life, whatever that means, but the neuro-scientist on bass trombone reverts to full gold-star dumbo status if he can’t play. When a band is musically chaotic and knows very little, there are two ways of dealing with it.
(a) The quickest method, much favoured in England, is to buy in as many of the best players as can be afforded by the budget. If the budget is big enough, enough star players can be afforded in order to create a working situation. This then attracts good subordinate players who sense something attractive is about to happen, and who want to be part of it. When/if the money runs out they leave when the good players leave. None of this is top secret … nothing new under the sun.
(b) Much more challenging is the situation where good players and/or money are short or non-existent. Then the conductor has to earn his keep: if he doesn’t know he is quickly found out. He isn’t allowed maestro tantrums if he can’t fix it. And “fixing it” means long-term progress, not just getting the thickest player in the band to put the right fingers down for next week’s contest. None of this jetting-in and swanning-around! Higher things? (Oh yeah!)
6. When did you begin to see results?
Because Norwegians are well-educated and hard-working … strange how those things go together … playing results started to appear straight away. The handful of good players took the challenge, led very well and the followers and even the duffers made damn sure they were not going to let the side down. We therefore instantly found a team spirit that bound the thing together. (At that time the Eikanger players paid to play, by the way, and probably still do.) For a period in the late eighties and early nineties, I travelled to Bergen every four to six weeks for rehearsal weekends, knowing that the time would be well spent. That ground work still shows, all these years later. They have earned their quality: they haven’t bought it!
7. What areas of the repertoire have you explored.
Almost everything.
8. How has the band developed over the 20 years and how do you see it developing in the future?
In any ensemble, whether it is a symphony orchestra, a brass band or a string quartet, someone has to do the work of maintaining it and then improving it. With Eikanger just about everyone has worked hard. Consequently the Band has continued to improve to this day.
The results that interest it and me are the musical ones. (The dotty contest results that seem to be a speciality of the Norwegian National don’t seem to bother the Band any more.) Over the years I have made suggestions as to what they could do with the promotion of their own concert series, which have worked very well, sometimes within very tight budgets. The Band has done many good things that have not been as a result of my ideas, and it has not done many good things that I have suggested. Business as usual in fact. I have always spoken my mind clearly about the band to the management, and then trusted them to get on with it as well as was possible. They have taken particularly good initiatives in the education field that have been hugely successful, and which are models of their kind. In short, as far as banding goes at the moment, they lead the overall field in terms of what they try to do.
If there's anything else you would like to add regarding your association with Eikanger-Bjørsvik, please feel free to do so.
I have spent lengthy spells with all the other Bands with which I have been associated. They have all been very different, all with unique characteristics, containing many fabulous players and some disastrous managements. I have no idea what the future holds for them, but for Eikanger? … I am confident that it is very well placed to prosper because firstly it knows how to survive, and well. But most important of all, it knows how to listen … and brilliantly.
2006
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