Royal Marines Band Service musicians in Portsmouth prepare for prestigious performance

Watch Royal Marines Band Service musicians in Portsmouth prepare for prestigious performance - The News, Portsmouth on Dailymotion

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00:00Hi, I'm Sergeant Natalie Lowndes. I've been in the band service for 23 years this September

00:04and this will be my last Mountbatten Festival music. Tell me how it feels to have obviously

00:11done all those years in the band service but also how it feels to be your last Mountbatten Festival.

00:18At the moment I don't think it feels real because it's just day-to-day, it's the same job I've been

00:22doing forever. I think when we get out to London it might get a bit emotional.

00:27And tell me what instrument you play? I am a clarinet player.

00:31And what do you love most about playing the clarinet? Within this job I just love being

00:39part of a large section. We have such a good team, we have good banter and yeah it's good fun.

00:56So tell me what your next move and next career is? So from September this year I will be studying

01:13midwifery university and hopefully going on to become a midwife in the local area in Portsmouth.

01:18Lovely. Have you always been local to Portsmouth? I moved to Portsmouth when I was 12. My dad was in

01:22the one week band service for 36 years so when Deal closed we moved to Portsmouth and I've been

01:29here ever since other than moving around the country on draft. I'm Lance Corporate Bugler

01:33Tom Haynes-Smith and I co-wrote this year's Drum Static on MFM 2025. Fantastic. Tell me how it feels

01:40to have co-written it? It's absolutely brilliant. It was quite a shock actually to turn up to

01:46rehearsals and see everyone playing the part that I wrote and to have it played on MFM this year

01:54is an absolute honour. Brilliant. Tell me how long you've been in the band service? So I've been in

01:58band service just over six years now. I've been to Libsdon band and I arrived at Collingwood band

02:06in September last year. Tell me what you love about it? The travel. I've done some brilliant

02:14trips in my career. We've got some more coming up later on this year so it's probably a highlight

02:20for me. Tell me how it feels to perform in the Mountbatten Festival of Music? It's brilliant.

02:27Not everyone gets to perform in the Royal Albert Hall and so to be there

02:32for the fourth time now is still a brilliant privilege.

02:44I'm Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Williams. I'm the Principal Director of Music Royal Marines.

02:49And tell me how rehearsals have been going? Rehearsals have been going well actually. I

02:56shouldn't sound surprised to say that. Rehearsals have been going really well. We've done a lot of

03:00preparation before this point so all the bands have seen the music. They know what they're

03:04up against so they've had a chance to practice everything. So this has really been about

03:08putting everything together, making sure all the sound is balanced and any fine details are taken

03:14care of. I understand that you've been doing lots of rehearsals. Is anybody who's new to the

03:24festival this year feeling the pressure? There's a lot. There are always new people who've just

03:32come out of training who are doing things for the first time. In fact, one of our soloists

03:36this year has only just passed out of training. He's an exceptional talent, brilliant pianist.

03:41I'm sure they are feeling the pressure. If you don't feel a little bit of pressure

03:46playing in the Royal Albert Hall then you're probably in the wrong job. It's very exciting

03:51though and normally the pressure makes people perform to their best. That's the hope, that you

03:57have a bit of nervous energy that you can take into the performance. Tell me, festivals like

04:03this, is this one of the highlights of being in the band service? Yeah, absolutely. I think the

04:09Royal Albert Hall is such a special place to play and being able to combine three or four Royal

04:15Marines bands together, so you've got over 100 musicians on stage, that's a pretty special

04:20experience for everybody and I think it's something that people really look forward to all year really.