Kildwick CE School Mini Ringers played fantastically well at the Skipton Music Festival. Here is a short write up from Chris Wright the Mini Ringers teacher.
They never expected to win – and, after their first piece (quite a difficult arrangement of Schubert’s “Cradle Song”), we never thought that they would. The much easier “Bobby Shafto”, however, went better than I’ve ever heard them ring. It was that, alongside their cheerful cooperation and constant concentration that won the MiniRingers a trophy we never dreamed of holding against a band that concentrate solely on tune ringing. As the Adjudicator wrote: “Some very bold and resonant playing with considerable clarity across the ringers”.
Winning the change ringing trophy was less of a surprise. All three of the bands were MiniRingers! Change ringing is quite a technical game and it was no surprise to find that the adjudicator hadn’t come across it before! All the bands rang well and the result could have gone any way; there was little to separate them. In the end, it was the slightly older group (we called them the MidiRingers) who won, but all three bands put on a very convincing performance.
Someone in the audience said that “the band from Gargrave should enter this”. One thing to do this year is to investigate just what band exists in Gargrave – and whether they could be persuaded to join us. Perhaps next year, we’ll have three bands competing!
