Following their letter to EBBA and its Music Commission, Brassband Oberoesterreich has received a very quick response.

Reply

In a reply from EBBA President Ulf Rosenberg, EBBA has outlined its response to the series of written comments made by the Austrians following the recent European Championships in Stavanger.

In it, EBBA has reiterated its basic mission statement as well as addressing the number of points that both Band Manager Thomas Beiganz and Conductor Hannes Buchegger raised.

...everybody will agree that Brass Band Oberostereich is an outstanding representative for renewal and highly valued contributions to interpretation, sound and overall music makingEBBA President Ulf Rosenberg

EBBA Response

Dear Thomas Beiganz and Hannes Buchegger and the Brassband Oberoesterreich:

Thank you for your letter and your feedback to EBBA, all comments, feedback and proposals that can help us to make the EBBC into an even better festival is appreciated and highly welcome.

It is EBBA’S mission to TO FURTHER & PROMOTE THE INTRINSIC, AESTHETIC AND SOCIAL VALUES OF BRASS BANDS IN EUROPE. In light of this, EBBA is first and foremost an all-European organisation. The European Brass Band Championships is EBBA's most important tool to accommodate this.

One of EBBA's challenges is to balance the preservation of a great brass band tradition, deeply manifested in the UK, with all contributions of innovation and progress. The challenge hereof is exactly what inspires EBBA, bands, and event managers all over Europe to organise and continuously evolve the European Championships and it’s week long Festival.

Through the years a range of new bands have been introduced on the EBBC and everybody will agree that Brass Band Oberostereich is an outstanding representative for renewal and highly valued contributions to interpretation, sound and overall music making.

We sincerely hope this will continue in the future, in spite of, and independent of — for the band's disappointing results in one year's competition. All bands in Europe can relate to this, and will have on one or more occasion had the same negative experience.

We hope that any feedback and results, after the initial shock, may contribute to the musical development of any competing band.

European banding needs bands from many different nations — with new approaches to music making — that brings new impulses to our movement.

You make specific references to the adjudicators during this year's EBBC. EBBA aims to appoint balanced adjudicator teams at an international level, with different musical, artistic and geographic background.

If you review the CVs imbedded in the program from EBBC, you will see that "narrow-minded brass band traditionalists" is not a characteristic worthy on any of them.

They are, on the contrary, professional musicians and conductors/composers with a wide-spread and extensive experience, with references from universities and symphonic orchestras, different wind ensembles, as well as from brass bands.

EBBA will continue to seek adjudicator teams of that magnitude in the future. During the adjudicator briefing on Friday it was explicitly stressed, and with a clear consent from the adjudicators, to evaluate based on performance quality alone — and not let choice of music influence the scores.

Austria and Linz will host the EBBC in 2010. EBBA and the entire brass band movement look forward to a European Brass Band Championship in one of Europe's strong cultural nations, with an extraordinary rich musical tradition, in the renowned Brucknerhaus.

A most important task to promote EBBC in 2010 takes place next year — in Oostende. We would hope the Linz organisers can feel support and have the blessing from their nation's foremost band when they promote the 2010 event in Oostende 2009.

Brass Band Oberoesterreich has a place on the centre stage among the other top European brass bands.

Yours Sincerely,

Ulf Rosenberg
President
European Brass Band Association
Stavanger 20 May 2008