Are you interested in a wind ensemble contest in Japan?
I’ll show you an outline of the contest.
1. Organizer
All Japan Band Association holds a contest. It has several branches in Japan.
Asahi newspaper supports this contest.
2. Regional tournament
A wind ensemble contest is held in your district, your prefecture and your region.
If you win the three contests, you can enter a national convention.
A district,prefecture and regional contest held in summer, and a national convention held in autumn.
The national convention was held in FUMONKAN in Tokyo several years ago. FUMONKAN is a big concert hall.
Every wind ensemble player knows this hall.
Unfortunately,It was decided to stop using it because it was old.
Now then, the national convention is held in different places every year.
3. Prize
There are three awards in a contest.
They is a gold prize, silver prize and bronze prize.
You may think that only three ensemble teams get prizes but it is wrong. Every band gets one.
I’ll teach you a little thing about the prizes.
Gold prize and silver prize are similar pronunciation in Japanese.
Gold prize is Kinshou and silver prize is Ginshou in Japanese.
But the announcer isn’t a professional of so he or she says ‘Kinshou gold’ or ‘Ginshou’.
By means of this, an audience can recognize Kinshou and Ginshou.
4.Two tunes
An entry team plays two tunes.One is a required piece of music.
There are five required pieces of music every year.You can choose one piece.
Another tune is free.But you need to keep to the time.
Two tunes need to be played within twelve minutes.If you play over twelve minutes, you are disqualified.
5.Fee
If you want to be in the audience, the entrance fee is about 500 yen.
6.How to enter
If you want to enter this contest, your team needs to be a member of the association.
There are several sections in the contest. For example, there are junior high school, high school, university and general public.
If your team is a citizens wind ensemble team, you can enter as general public.
