2026 Spring Festival Tests
The Mortimer family have announced the test-pieces and adjudicators for next year’s British Open Spring Festival. Care has been taken to ensure that both the choice of music and judges reflects the ongoing commitment to sustaining the development of the event as it re-locates to Birmingham.
Commenting on the prestigious event, due to take place on 2-3 May at Birmingham’s Town Hall and the Symphony Hall’s Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space, the Mortimer family stated, “2026 heralds a new era for the 104th Spring Festival — one that also reinforces our commitment to securing and developing the event's future and its link directly to the British Open. We are delighted at the choices made by our Artistic Director Dr Robert Childs, which balance ambition to artistic excellence for the competitors, allied to the appreciation of the needs and expectations of our audiences. We offer everyone a warm musical welcome to the competitions at their new venues.”
Bands competing at the Grand Shield will be working hard to impress adjudicators Stephen Roberts and Anne Crookston. The work, ‘Star Crossed Lovers’ is from the pen of adjudicator Stephen Roberts. The music is based on Sergei Prokofiev's score for the ballet 'Romeo and Juliet', first composed in 1935, but revised for its Soviet premiere at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad in 1940. It will be familiar to many as the popular work composed for this year’s British Open Championships.
‘Ballet for Band’ by Joseph Horovitz has been selected to test bands in the Senior Cup. Originally commissioned for the 1983 National Championships of Great Britain, Horovitz stated: "The characters and plot were quite clear in my mind before composing it, but I prefer the audience to exercise its own imagination rather than to be influenced by mine.
The work is in three linked sections, the central one being the most lyrical. All themes are directly or more subtly derived from the opening fanfare motive, which is heard at the end." The contest will be adjudicated by David Hirst and Lauren Petritz-Watts.
In the Senior Cup bands will compete with Robert Farnon's 'Un Vie de Matelot ('A Sailor's Life'). The work was originally written for the 1975 National Finals and has remained popular ever since. The contest will be adjudicated by Alan Morrison and Andrea Price.
