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At Last - after all these years of trying - we have made it! We are performing at the Royal Albert Hall in the Schools' Prom on Nov 11th! This is a fantastic result for us, as it has been something we have wanted to do for years! Our performance at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham gave us the "outstanding" that we needed, and the adjudicators obviously wanted us to perform at the Albert hall as well! We are really looking forward to it, as it really is a very special event. Anyone who has been before will know that the atmosphere is simply electric - there is absolutely no other concert quite like it! Click here for a link to the National Festival's website. See you there! All England Masters, Cambridge Corn Exchange This was certainly a surprise booking! The All England Masters is a huge event in the brass band contesting world. Many of the country's top bands take part in this competition - bands such as Foden's Richardson, Faireys, Desford Colliery to name but a few. There are also bands from overseas, this year from Switzerland and Belgium. Imagine our delight therefore when we were invited to do a short concert to provide entertainment between the last band playing, and the adjudication! What a way to show the adult brass banding world what we can do! We gave them our Blackpool "Big Band Set", which was very well received indeed! Comments afterwards were "great", "well done", "a brilliant contrast to the test piece" and "shall we see you next year?" We will have to wait and see! The Coplow Centre, Billesden Earlier in the year, we had been approached by a gentleman who wanted to give his wife a bit of a surprise birthday party! He booked us to do a concert for her! So, April 27th saw us at the Coplow Centre, Billesden to do a special concert. It was a bit crowded on stage, but that didn't deter us, as we put on a show to remember! This lady won't forget this particular birthday in a hurry! Corby Willows Theatre Concert Sat April 19th saw us tackling something of a new venture. Over the last few years we have been delighted to accompany the Corby Male Voice Choir at their annual concert in Corby. We have had some fantastic evenings with them, but having built on our success, we wondered how we would get on if we simply booked the theatre ourselves, and put on a public Youth Brass concert! Don - as ever - put in a huge amount of work with the theatre. Tickets were printed, posters published, and at every opportunity the word was spread. As we had never actually taken on an entire theatre on our own before, we were naturally a bit apprehensive as to how many people would actually turn up! We needn't have worried though - the theatre was at least two thirds full - and that is a lot of people! It was a fantastic evening. We were on top form, and the crowd wouldn't let us leave the stage until we had performed two encores! Masterclass 2008 2008 started with a bit of a bang, with our Masterclass at Leicester Grammar School. It was held over the weekend of Jan 2nd & 3rd, to help us with our preparations for Blackpool the next weekend. We held two concerts during the weekend, one of which was held in conjunction with Leicester Grammar School Bands. We were extremely lucky to have the services of some superstar players to help us in sectionals, and for the well known conductor, Richard Evans, who came all the way from Scotland to coach us for the day on Sunday. It was a fantastic weekend, which raised our performance to a new level! Click here to go to our Gallery for some pictures! |
