4BR will be making the long trip to Montreux this weekend to cover the action at the 40th Swiss National Championships.

56 bands

56 bands will take part in the event at the Montreux Music and Convention Center, with the Championship Section battle to represent Switzerland at the European Championship in Freiburg, centered on the Stravinsky Hall over Saturday and Sunday.

Five new works

Five new test pieces have been commissioned, with the fates decided by panel of adjudicators, which include Ian Bousfield, Richard Evans, Alan Fernie, David Childs, Garry Cutt, Simon Dobson, Peter Graham, Steve Pritchard-Jones, Stephen Roberts, Steve Sykes, Allan Withington and Chris Wormald.

Composer award

The milestone event will also see composer Oliver Waespi, who has written the top section set work, ‘As If A Voice Were In Them’ receive the prestigious Swiss Musicians Foundation ‘In Memoriam Stephan Jaeggi’ award.

Other works include, ‘Flow!’ by Mario Bürki for the Fourth Section, the Third Section composition, ‘Cha Das Caldeiras’ by Pierre Schmidhäusler, Bertrand Moren’s ‘The Son of Light’ in the Second Section and Stefan Hodel’s ‘A Lenda Do Curupira’ in the First Section.

Composer Oliver Waespi, who has written the top section set work, ‘As If A Voice Were In Them’ will receive the prestigious Swiss Musicians Foundation ‘In Memoriam Stephan Jaeggi’ award4BR

Live coverage

The Championship Section bands will also perform their own choice selections to see who will join reigning European champion Brass Band Bugermusik Luzern in Freiburg 2015.

4BR Editor Iwan Fox will be providing live coverage from the event from Saturday.