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Macc bands in the honours
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| ALL SMILES: Ian Mason (left), director of The Co-operative Group which sponsors MYBB, Louise Renshaw, musical director MYBB, and Phillip Jones, former secretary of United Co-operatives |
TWO Macclesfield bands have been hitting the high notes.
For the second year running, Macclesfield Youth Brass Band won a special award for Outstanding Contribution to the Community and a cheque for £500 at the National Youth Brass Band Championships, while Silk Brass (AstraZeneca) will set radio airwaves humming later this year after recording a session last weekend for the BBC Radio 2 programme Listen to the Band.
Thirty-four bands competed at the National Youth Brass Band Championships, held at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Congratulating the Macclesfield band on its success, Ian Mason, director of The Co-operative Group, said: "Many of the bands do fantastic work in their local communities, but Macclesfield stood out as an organisation that pushes all traditional boundaries and looks for new and innovative ways to serve the community."
The projects that impressed the panel of judges included the band's commitment to supporting children with a wide variety of special needs to learn an instrument, the introduction of a scheme to provide alto trombones to enable younger children to take up the trombone, the band's support of Jessie's Fund, a charity which provides music therapy for seriously ill children, and the band's contributions to the Martyn Donaldson Trust, a local charity which ships musical instruments to Kenya for use by children in a school in Nairobi.
Anyone interested in joining the band can visit www.mybb.org.uk for more information or go along to their next concert at 7pm on Saturday May 10 at St Michael's Church, Marketplace, Macclesfield. All 80 members of the organisation will be performing along with a special guest soloist, Mark Landon, who is the principal percussionist with the world famous Fodens Band. Tickets, costing £4 for adults and £2 for children, are available on the door.
Regular listeners to the popular Friday evening show Listen to the Band will have already heard presenter Frank Renton playing tracks from the new Silk Brass CD, A Decade of Silk, but the band members were thrilled to receive an invitation to be guests on the show and have a programme devoted to their music.
Jim Cant, Silk's conductor, said: "This is probably one of the biggest events in the band's history. It's a great honour to be asked to record a programme for the BBC, as the majority of bands never get that opportunity."
The recording took place in studio 7 at the BBC's Oxford Road building in Manchester, which is believed to have some of the best acoustics in the country and regularly accommodates the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Jim is no stranger to these impressive surroundings, however, as he recorded many sessions here during his playing days with the Fairey Band.
He went on to say: "It can be quite an awe-inspiring experience, the acoustics are excellent and all the recording equipment can be a little intimidating, but the band performed extremely well - I'm very proud of them. We're all really looking forward to hearing the finished article on the broadcast."
After two-and-a-half hours of hard work, interspersed with a few breaks, the band had recorded the seven tracks for the programme and retired en masse for some well-earned refreshment at a local watering hole, followed by a visit to Manchester's famous Curry Mile', where they virtually took over one restaurant as waiters tried to accommodate a table for 35.
Silk's Listen to the Band programme will include some favourites like the famous Whit Friday march ORB, as well as some new additions to Silk's repertoire, such as a beautiful rendition of the Barbra Streisand hit People, performed by the band's new principal cornet player, Mark Davies.
The date of Silk's show will be confirmed in the near future and details will be posted on the band's new-look website www.silkbrass.com.
Listen to the Band may be heard every Friday on BBC Radio 2 at 9.30pm.
jean.ellis@commnews.co.uk
9:16am Friday 9th May 2008
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