Kilwinning Orchestral Flutes

Our spring concert will be held on Wednesday 17th April in Kilwinning Abbey Church Hall, at 7.30pm. Come along to hear a great selection of music and sample our home-baking! Tickets are £5 and available on the door or from band members.

We’re delighted to say that we’ve confirmed the date of our annual Christmas concert! Please join us on Wednesday 13th December at 7.30pm in Kilwinning Old Parish Church (Abbey Church), to hear a range of Christmas tunes and carols as well as some of our non-festive repertoire. Tickets are £5 and will be available on the door.

Yesterday we competed at the Scottish Amateur Flute Association competition, held in Stonehouse Lifestyle Centre. This year’s test piece was ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’, and we’re pleased to have taken third place for both the test piece and our hymn tune. Well done to all our players, and also to the other bands who competed.

Our annual carol concert is on Wednesday 14th December, in Kilwinning Abbey Church Hall at 7.30pm. As well as carols (with audience participation) and Christmas songs, our programme this year will include pieces by Mozart, Verdi, and Strauss. We are delighted that pupils from Corsehill Primary will also be performing a few songs. Tickets are £5 and available at the door. We hope to see you there!

Great day at the Scottish Amateur Flute Association contest on Saturday 21st November! We played ‘With Each Sunset’ and the test piece ‘Invitation to the Dance’ (Weber). Delighted to say we won the hymn tune, percussion, and solo treble prizes, and the overall Championship. Our solo alto and contrabass players also got mentions for playing particularly well. Congratulations and well done to all our players!

We competed at the SAFBA Spring Contest in Troon on May 17th, playing ‘Juarez’ in the March section, and then ‘Oblivion’ (an Argentine tango) and ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’ in the Own Choice section. All of our members played exceptionally well, and we came away with the Interpretation Prize, the Piccolo Prize (congratulations to our piccolo player, Laura McBride), 1st in Own Choice, 2nd in March and Overall Best Band! Congratulations to all members, and of course thanks/congratulations also go to our conductor Willie Young. Thanks also to Louise’s husband Craig who kindly recorded our performances, which can be found on our Facebook page.

At the SAFBA contest on Saturday 23rd November, we came 2nd in the hymn tune class with ‘Hymn to the Fallen’, earning 85 points. We also came 4th in the test piece class (playing Rossini’s ‘The Siege of Corinth’), with 84 points. Well done to all our players, and many thanks to those who made a special effort to come and play with us.

After much deliberation and discussion with the full band, it has been decided that Kilwinning Amateur Prize Flute Band will now be known as Kilwinning Orchestral Flutes. We believe the new name accurately reflects the current focus of the band, which has been gradually changing over the past few years. Thanks to all those who expressed an opinion and offered suggestions while we were deciding upon our new name.

On Saturday 8th December, we played an evening concert in Beith Trinity Church, organised by and in aid of Beith Cultural & Heritage Society. We’ve given concerts for BCHS on previous occasions and, as usual, there was a great turn-out.

We played a varied programme of classical music, marches, and popular music, and also had space for a couple of solos. Pieces included Gabriel’s Oboe, Pirates of the Caribbean, With Each Sunset, Jamie’s Patrol, and excerpts from Don Giovanni. Our soloists were Adam Smith, who played Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca on xylophone, accompanied by the band; James McHugh, who played Debussy’s Syrinx; and Caitlin Turner, who played Doppler’s Hungarian Fantasy.

Thanks to BCHS for inviting us!