Sunday in Rosebud

For members of the Melbourne Staff Band (Bandmaster Ken Waterworth), Sunday, 16 September 2007 brought a picturesque morning drive down the Mornington Peninsula to the bay side suburb of Rosebud. The Staff Band was in Rosebud to conduct a Sunday morning service and perform at an afternoon concert.

Darren Waterworth began the morning service with a call to worship, in which he reminisced about bygone days at the Dromana Drive-In. The band was pleased to have Major Robert Paterson in attendance to lead the meeting. With current executive officer Major Len Turner away on long service leave, Major Paterson was returning to a familiar role, having served as the Staff Band’s executive officer last year.

The Staff Band’s contributions to the morning service included Reasons Why (Feltwell) and In This Quiet Moment (Bosanko). Vocalist Rachel Peterson presented Softly and Tenderly. Following the service, the Staff Band and the congregation joined in a time of fellowship.

After lunch, the Staff Band traveled a short distance down the road to the Rosebud Secondary College, where the newly-opened auditorium was the venue for the afternoon concert. This was the first concert by a non-school group in the new facility and was a benefit to raise money for the school’s chaplaincy program.

A capacity crowd greeted the Staff Band as the began the progam with the march Milestone (William Himes). The orchestral arrangement of The Power of Your Love followed, and then two fine solo performances: Garry Todd with Joshua Swings the Battle and Paul Smith with Fiesta. The first major work of the afternoon was Kenneth Downie’s King of Heaven, followed by Vaughan Duck’s “Finding Nemo” multimedia display with the gospel tune Wade in the Water. Rachel Peterson was again a crowd favorite, singing He Reigns and His Eye Is on the Sparrow.

Jamie Smith again delivered an excellent performance with Rhapsody for Euphonium (Stephen Bulla), before the second major work of the concert, Robert Redhead’s Corpus Christi. James Morrison’s fantastic version of Waltzing Matilda (arranged by Staff Band alumnus Ian Jones, who was in attendance) concluded the first half of the concert.

The second half of the program was the Melbourne Staff Band’s choreographed, dramatic presentation commonly referred to as the “routine”. It had been a few months since the last performance of the routine, so there were a few cobwebs that needed sweeping before everything got back on track. This was the first routine performance for new recruit Caroline Holman, Nigel Mapes (coming off the injured list) and Alan Collett (returning from the veteran’s list). It is probably fair to say that Alan never expected to be a part of anything like this when he first joined the Staff Band.

One notable absence from the routine was Mark Hamilton, who had unfortunately managed to injure his back sometime during the week.

Fortunately, all managed to survive the routine performance with no wrong moves or new injuries, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed it. Impromptu applause littered the performance with every starburst, leap, gallop and piroutte appreciated.

After another strong workout, a couple of band members were rumored to be heading to the bay to cool down, while the rest of the group headed back up the freeway to Melbourne.