Estonian youth wind orchestra wins bronze at World Music Contest

The Estonian Youth Wind Orchestra placed third in the youth division of the World Music Contest, an international wind orchestra competition held in the Dutch city of Kerkrade on July 31, ERR reported.

The World Music Contest has been held every four years since 1951 in Kerkrade, near the Dutch German border. The month-long competition features wind orchestras, Dutch and Belgian fanfare orchestras, and brass bands that originated in the United Kingdom and have since spread worldwide.

The youth division was introduced as a separate competition category this year. It featured 15 orchestras from Estonia, Hong Kong, China, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Latvia and Kyrgyzstan. Participating musicians had to be no older than 21.

The Estonian orchestra scored 93.83 points for its performance of the compulsory piece and 96.17 points for its freely chosen programme, giving it a total of 95.00 points. The top two places went to youth wind orchestras from Colombia, which scored 96.00 and 95.19 points respectively.

On the stage of the Kerkrade theatre, the orchestra performed four pieces: British composer Philip Sparke’s North Hills Fantasy; Amir Molookpour’s compulsory piece Impressions of Caucasus; Ema hääl kutsub by the Estonian band Metsatöll, arranged for the orchestra by trumpet player Martin Pajumaa; and Finnish composer Timo Forsström’s Sons of the Midnight Sun.

The Estonian Youth Wind Orchestra is a project orchestra that gathers for rehearsals and concerts an average of five times a year. All the other orchestras in the category are permanent ensembles that rehearse at least once a week, and in some cases more often. The Estonian orchestra also took part in the competition in 2001 and 2005.