Today Feilding Brass and Dannevirke Brass combined forces in a concert at St. Johns church in Dannevirke.

First up was Dannevirke, aided by a few Feilding players, with a stylish collection of hits traversing the decades. Feilding followed with an eight piece program spanning the classic Goff Richards’ The Golden Lady, via classical, pop, and film-score, through to the hymn How Great Thou Art.

Then the combined forces were on display: starting unconducted with the classic march Invercargill; two numbers conducted by Neil Williams from Dannevirke, Mack the Knife, and the Imperial March; and the finale, One Moment In Time under the baton of Feilding director, Craig Holdaway.

The day was a wonderful success, thoroughly enjoyed by both bands and a sizable audience.

Our year came to its grand conclusion with the always popular Feilding Carols by Candlelight.

The evening started with the band’s mini-concert, kicking off in flamboyant style with New York, New York; with One Moment in Time, Singin In The Rain, Home of Legends, and A Christmas Festival all well received by the capacity audience.

The band then joined with vocalists AJ and Val, three combined choirs, and the wonderful audience to render our collection of traditional carols and modern Christmas songs.

Merry Christmas everybody, and we’ll see you again in 2014.

On Saturday we led the Ashhurst Xmas Parade up Cambridge Avenue.

Today we played carols in two ensembles during lunchtime in the Feilding Christmas Carnival, then marched #57 in the Christmas Parade through an, as always, packed and bustling crowd lining Feilding town centre.

So it has been a busy weekend of seasonal events. Just one to go next weekend!

Training band finished their year with a concert for their supporters. A diverse program included hymns Abide with Me and Amazing Grace, international dances, and the high-speed Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The concert concluded with a boisterous rendition of Pop Goes the Weasel using every player on every piece of percussion.

Special awards were given out for most improved players, to Hila and Julia; and players of the year, percussionists Chloe and Jesh.

Big thanks to Jayne for all her work during the year and we look forward to another training band year starting in February.

For the third year in a row we accompanied the opening ceremony at the Leisure Marching display hosted by local team, Step’n Thyme. It’s a great event and we thoroughly enjoyed providing some live marches and a few carols beforehand.