CENTRE STAGE WITH ALAN MORRISON - It isn't often that The Harrogate Band has the opportunity to perform on the stage of the town's impressive Victorian theatre, so when the chance arose the band was keen to make the most of it! Joining forces with cornet virtuoso Alan Morrison - the band presented a varied programme of popular classics alongside original band music, with a contrast in the second half where both band and soloist used the space and resources of the theatre to present a specially selected programme. Click here to read a review of the concert.
<23/6/2006>
WHIT FRIDAY - The band enjoyed a second visit to the Whit Friday march contests in Saddleworth where they played William Rimmer's classic march The Black Knight. Perhaps owing to the spell of good weather there seemed to be many more bands in attendance than last year and so Harrogate only managed to compete in 5 events. The best result was a highly creditable fourth place at Denshaw - on average the band's results were significantly higher than last year.
<9/6/2006>
LANCASTER CATHEDRAL - A long coach journey over the Pennines was the prelude to a concert which the band gave at Lancaster Cathedral last month, the final concert in the inaugural concert season at the Cathedral. The programme included Die Zauberflote and Ave Verum Corpus to mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth and 'Shine as the Light' by Peter Graham. Featured soloists were David Smith (cornet) and Adrian Lowes (euphonium) whilst Steve Morland and Andrew Whitaker joined forces (in costume!) for the xylophone duet 'The Two Imps'. The knowledgeable audience included members of a number of local bands and they must have been quite impressed as Harrogate sold a record number of CDs at this concert! Hopefully it won't be too long before the band has the opportunity to make a return visit.
<3/6/2006>
RIPON ROTARY - The impressive setting of Holy Trinity Church in Ripon was the magnificent venue for a concert which the band gave in aid of Yorkshire Cancer Relief. In tribute to the organisers, Ripon Rotary Club, Harrogate opened the second half of the concert with Peter Graham's new march 'Celebrate Rotary', composed to mark the 100th anniversary of the Rotarian movement. The concert was well received by a large and enthusiastic audience and raised nearly £900 towards cancer care.
<20/5/2006>
BESIDE THE SEASIDE - The Spring Festival, held in Blackpool's Winter Gardens, is one of the premiere brass band contests today. It arose from the ashes of the Belle Vue Spring Festival when Manchester's famous amusement park closed for the last time; the contest remains a battleground for bands in the Championship Section, the elite of the brass band movement. Harrogate took part in the Senior Trophy class against some very strong bands from as far afield as Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in addition to several from Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East. Playing the set testpiece 'The Essence of Time' by Peter Graham, the band gave a spirited and well shaped performance which earned them sixth place out of twenty bands, a highly creditable result which goes some way to make up for the band's disappointing result at Darlington earlier this year.
<13/5/2006>
Jazz Night - The Harrogate International Youth Music Festival takes place each year at Easter, attracting bands from all around the world who present concerts alongside Harrogate's own excellent youth bands all around the Harrogate District. This year, numbers of visiting bands had fallen slightly, possibly due to the London bombings last summer and the unstable situation in Iraq, so Festival Director Sharon Canavar invited the (slightly less youthful) Harrogate Band to contribute to one of the concerts. Of course many Harrogate players had played in the Festival during their own schooldays and cornet player Andrew Jackson had participated in the very first HIYMF back in the 1970s. The event chosen was the popular Jazz and Swing Evening held at the Crown Hotel, and the band presented a short set from their new 'Swing!' CD, which drew a warm and appreciative response from the large audience. Although doubly out of place playing swing music in a youth festival, the Harrogate Band continues to seek out new audiences and opportunities in a continuing effort to popularise brass band music in the wider community.
<16/4/2006>
IATEFL - The Harrogate Band had the honour of introducing the brass band to an international audience when we played for the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in April. The concert, held in Harrogate's International Centre was a relaxed and informal affair, with band members able to chat to the audience during the interval; most European countries were represented, including those from Eastern Europe, along with delegates from the USA, Africa and the Middle East, many of whom were listening to a brass band for the first time.
<9/4/2006>
MUSICAL DIRECTOR'S AWARD - Each year at the Annual General Meeting of the band the MD makes a presentation to the player who he considers had made the greatest improvement during the previous year. In 2006 the award was presented to cornet player David Smith who has given several highly accomplished performances during the year, deputising for principal cornet player Robert Illsley on a number of occasions. David was previously a member of St Aidan's School Concert Band and the Tewit Youth Band, joining Harrogate with his father Cliff some three years ago. Congratulations David!
<22/3/2006>
RADIO 4 BROADCAST - The Harrogate Band made a brief "appearance" in the Broadcasting House programme on Radio 4 this Sunday (5th March) as part of the weekly quiz. An extract from The Harrogate Songbook, which can be found on the Made in Harrogate CD, was played together with other sounds to illustrate the town of Harrogate - such as Betty's tea room, Betty Lupton's Ladle Laikers, and the Turkish Baths. The first sound heard is that of some music representing Ming the Merciless - a reference to the new Liberal Party leader and the party Conference being held in the town this weekend! The broadcast quiz can be heard here - bhhb.mp3.
<5/3/2006>
NEW MARIMBA MUSIC - Composer Damien Harron has teamed up with David Lancaster and the Harrogate Band to produce a brand new marimba work for the band. The Band commissioned a new work for marimba and band by Damien, who is well known as one of the four multi-talented percussionists in the award-winning Backbeat ensemble, and is also an exciting and innovative composer in his own right. The band is thrilled with the new piece and looking forward to its first performance when Simone Rebello will be the soloist, in Ripon Cathedral on February 26th.
Entitled Along Those Lines it is a rhythmically driven piece that combines the energetic, percussive tones of the marimba, (which plays almost constantly) with a succession of broader melodic phrases in the band parts. It's a challenging piece for soloist and band but we're confident that the audience will respond favourably to its rhythmic energy and drive - in places it's quite funky!
The band selected Damien to compose for them because they wanted to find a composer from outside of the mainstream band movement, and someone who really understood the full potential of the marimba. When Simone Rebello introduced David Lancaster to Damien's music he was immediately convinced. Simone will play Along Those Lines on forthcoming overseas tours, and Damien is to provide the band with a 2-player version of the marimba part so the work is assured of many performances all around the world.
<14/2/2006>
SWING! - The Band's latest CD, Swing! is now available. The Harrogate Band has chosen a broad selection of jazz and swing music, centred around the classics of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Ted Heath but also exploring the more modern sounds of Brubeck, Kenton and Abdullah Ibrahim.
Brass bands and big bands are from very different musical traditions: the heritage of the traditional British brass band draws largely upon European classical and military music whereas the big band whose swing music became popular in the 30's and 40's were descended from Afro-American jazz and blues. But there are similarities too: both were originally the music of working class peoples and both have survived and continued to evolve and develop in spite of changing fashions and the dominance of pop and rock music.
The modern brass band is eclectic in its approach and takes its repertoire from a wide range of musical styles. A typical concert might include marches, solos and serious original band music alongside classical transcriptions, music from stage, screen or television and all kinds of popular styles. This recording is very different: here the Harrogate Band is attempting to cross a musical boundary and in doing so create something quite new, neither one thing nor another but hopefully incorporating the best of both.
The Harrogate Band's previous four recordings have each met with great success and we are sure that this one will provide as much pleasure for the listener as we had producing it.
For further details, or to order CDs please see the recordings page
<25/1/2006>
THE YEAR AHEAD - The Harrogate Band has a tremendous year in prospect as it looks forward to a series of exciting concert and contest opportunities. On 14th January the band is close to home in Starbeck where the Methodist Church is celebrating its 75th birthday and has invited the Band to present a concert to begin the celebrations. February sees the Band travel south as far as Yeovil where it will take part in the prestigious Entertainment Contest alongside a dozen or more of the country's leading bands. On 26th February the band will return to Ripon Cathedral to present an afternoon concert with percussion virtuoso Simone Rebello in which the programme will include the first performance of a new work for marimba and brass band by Damian Herron alongside popular favourites chosen to suit the glorious acoustics of the Cathedral. March sees the Band in action in the regional round of the National Brass Band Championships in Darlington when Harrogate will be hoping to improve on last year's best ever fifth place in the Championship Section. In April the band will perform for a conference at Harrogate's International Centre and in May we make a return visit to the Spring Festival competition held at Blackpool's Winter Gardens followed later in the month by a concert in Holy Trinity Church in Ripon for the first time. In June the Band crosses the Pennines once more for a concert in Lancaster Cathedral as part of a prestigious new concert series, then in July we take up an invitation to present a concert in Harrogate Theatre – a great opportunity to play in this marvellous venue and the evening is sure to bring out not only a high standard of performance but also an exciting visual presentation. This isn't the complete picture of the Band's spring schedule by any means but it certainly promises to be an exciting and busy time which reflects the extent to which the Band is now in demand.
Please find full details of these concerts including ticket availability in the 'Engagements' section of our website.
<3/1/2006>
Perhaps owing to the spell of good weather there seemed to be many more bands in attendance than last year and so Harrogate only managed to compete in 5 events. The best result was a highly creditable fourth place at Denshaw - on average the band's results were significantly higher than last year.
A long coach journey over the Pennines was the prelude to a concert which the band gave at Lancaster Cathedral last month, the final concert in the inaugural concert season at the Cathedral. The programme included Die Zauberflote and Ave Verum Corpus to mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth and 'Shine as the Light' by Peter Graham. Featured soloists were David Smith (cornet) and Adrian Lowes (euphonium) whilst Steve Morland and Andrew Whitaker joined forces (in costume!) for the xylophone duet 'The Two Imps'. The knowledgeable audience included members of a number of local bands and they must have been quite impressed as Harrogate sold a record number of CDs at this concert! Hopefully it won't be too long before the band has the opportunity to make a return visit.
BESIDE THE SEASIDE - The Spring Festival, held in Blackpool's Winter Gardens, is one of the premiere brass band contests today. It arose from the ashes of the Belle Vue Spring Festival when Manchester's famous amusement park closed for the last time; the contest remains a battleground for bands in the Championship Section, the elite of the brass band movement. Harrogate took part in the Senior Trophy class against some very strong bands from as far afield as Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in addition to several from Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East. Playing the set testpiece 'The Essence of Time' by Peter Graham, the band gave a spirited and well shaped performance which earned them sixth place out of twenty bands, a highly creditable result which goes some way to make up for the band's disappointing result at Darlington earlier this year.
Jazz Night - The Harrogate International Youth Music Festival takes place each year at Easter, attracting bands from all around the world who present concerts alongside Harrogate's own excellent youth bands all around the Harrogate District. This year, numbers of visiting bands had fallen slightly, possibly due to the London bombings last summer and the unstable situation in Iraq, so Festival Director Sharon Canavar invited the (slightly less youthful) Harrogate Band to contribute to one of the concerts. Of course many Harrogate players had played in the Festival during their own schooldays and cornet player Andrew Jackson had participated in the very first HIYMF back in the 1970s. The event chosen was the popular Jazz and Swing Evening held at the Crown Hotel, and the band presented a short set from their new 'Swing!' CD, which drew a warm and appreciative response from the large audience. Although doubly out of place playing swing music in a youth festival, the Harrogate Band continues to seek out new audiences and opportunities in a continuing effort to popularise brass band music in the wider community.
IATEFL - The Harrogate Band had the honour of introducing the brass band to an international audience when we played for the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in April. The concert, held in Harrogate's International Centre was a relaxed and informal affair, with band members able to chat to the audience during the interval; most European countries were represented, including those from Eastern Europe, along with delegates from the USA, Africa and the Middle East, many of whom were listening to a brass band for the first time.
SWING! - The Band's latest CD, Swing! is now available. The Harrogate Band has chosen a broad selection of jazz and swing music, centred around the classics of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Ted Heath but also exploring the more modern sounds of Brubeck, Kenton and Abdullah Ibrahim.