4th European Composer's Competition

Kursaal
Ostend
Thursday 30th April

Visions of victory: Betrand Moren takes the 4th European Composers title
Picture: Ian Clowes
 
One man’s visions are other men’s nightmares.

Given the titles of some of Bertrand Moren’s works of late, he would appear to be a prime candidate for the psychiatrist’s couch – a bit like a Swiss Tony Soprano.

Visions

We’ve had his ‘Dreams’ and now his ‘Visions’ – and both have come from the dark recesses of a very febrile mind. You do wonder how he sleeps at night…

The 4th European Composer’s Competition was the opening event of the 32nd European Brass Band Championships in the impressive Kursaal in Ostend, and although, as is becoming something of a tradition on such occasions, the whole thing went on a bit (two and half hours in fact) there was plenty to enjoy – from the music of the four finalists to the performance of the European Youth Band and the excitable Belgian compere.

Mr Garry

The evening started with Garry Cutt (Mr Garry to the MC) fronting Noord-Limburgse with what was billed as the march ‘Milestone’ by William Himes, but which we were informed by two eminent Army veterans was in fact something completely different. What – we don’t know!

Bambi

Local lad Kevin Houben was the first composer featured with, ‘Rain’ – which commemorated a catastrophic downpour in these parts in the early 16th century.

It was all pretty impressive and confident stuff – if a little filmatic, and the enthusiastic audience (about 300 or so) lapped it up from the first dripping bars that were reminiscent of the rain scene music from ‘Bambi’ to the cats and dogs stuff to close.

It was certainly popular, and was rewarded with both the Audience Prize (everyone was given a slip of paper) and the Band Award. Given that he was the local lad made good (winning the same event in 2006) that didn’t come as a shock, but he did look a tad crestfallen when the judges put him in third place – although he did pick up a total of 2,500 Euros for his efforts.

Sixth Sense

Next up came the winner and his ‘Visions’ – a very competent and exciting 6 or so minutes that had all the necessary boxes ticked as far as the judges, Jan Van der Roost, Ray Farr and Rob Goorhuis were concerned.

Dark, disturbed, colourful and exciting it was a very slick bit of work from an experienced composer for brass. The subject matter may have been a touch of the Joan or Arc, ‘Sixth Sense’ stuff (all to do with the images that float through the subconscious before you finally fall into the arms of Morpheus, see dead people or go bonkers being burnt at the stake) but Mr Moren certainly enjoyed the vision of his bank account being filled by an extra 2,500 Euro.

Kleenex

’E-Motion’ from the pen of Lithuanian Valdas Stanaitis was all about the difference between emotionless love on the internet and emotion packed love in the first person.

Tricky to really get to grips with in six minutes, but he gave it a good bash, even if in the end you felt the Kleenex tissues were coming in handy more for the computer geeks…

Oblique

Finally, the oblique and dislocated ‘Whirl’ from the Swiss composer Ludovic Neurorh, which gained him second place and 2,000 Euro.

Short, sweet, a little naïve but certainly the most innovative and fresh (not a single Paul Lovatt-Cooper inspired bit if John Williams pastiche in sight), it just needed a bit more development to have struck a stronger more meaningful chord.

That was that the, or so we thought…

Hava Nagila

With the judges off the check their findings, the European Youth Band under Benny Wiame filled the overlong second half with a mixture of pretty average fare it must be said – from a sloppy ‘Resurgam’, which wouldn’t have risen the slightly sleepy let along the long since departed, and a very strange ‘Jewish Wake’ that was a mix of ‘Riverdance’ meets ‘Hava Nagila’ – ‘Rivernagila’ as we thought on the night. The rest was OK – nothing more.

Highlight

The real highlight of the second half was the soloist Lin Chin-Chen, the talented Belgian born marimba player who performed with a rare degree of artistry in the Mayuzumi Concertino and the unnamed encore. Don’t quite know about his choice of black leather trousers and white tie combo though….

Results

All that was left was the results (and these took the best part of 25 minutes).

Kevin Houben won the hearts of the band and audience, but not the judges to come third, whilst Ludovic Neurohr was announced as the runner up.

That just left Bertand Moren to pick up his second European Composer’s title (he won the first event in 1998) and to start thinking about  his next musical trip to the darkest corner’s of his mind…  

Iwan Fox 

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