Latest News
Roger Webster lends a helping hand to former pupil.
Roger Webster will make a surprise return to the brass band contesting arena by playing repiano cornet for Brighouse & Rastrick in next weekends Yorkshire Area Championships. The band‘s regular long-serving repiano cornet player, Alex Francis had a clash that made him unable to fulfil his normal commitments with the band. Alex is now Head of Brass & Woodwind for Barnsley Music Service and one of his many responsibilities is to conduct the services senior brass band, Barnsley Metropolitan Band.
Alex said ‘Last year was difficult, but was manageable as I conducted on the Saturday and B&R were performing on the Sunday, but this year the 4th section and the Championship section are next to each other on the same day. It’s not just the performance, the rehearsal schedule leading up to the contest made it impossible to fulfil both roles.’
When Alex contacted former RNCM tutor Roger to talk about his dilemma, he couldn’t believe his luck when Roger offered to fill in for him!
‘Roger has always been good to me and supported me in many ways. They always say make sure your dep isn’t as good as you, guess I’ve stuffed that one up!’
Roger will take over from Alex the week before the contest and is glad to help out his former pupil, although is as busy as ever at the moment with his regular teaching, professional trumpet work and many appearances as a cornet soloist.
Roger said ‘There’s a couple of my former pupil’s playing at B&R now, Alex is a really good musician and a good guy, hopefully good things happen to good people. I wish him and Barnsley Metropolitan Band all the best.’
Spring Massed Bands Concert - ‘125 Special’
Marking the 125th B&R Massed bands promotion at Huddersfield Town Hall. Come out of winter mode and book now for this major celebration on 20th March 2010! Special guests Enfield Citadel Band with Guest Conductor Garry Cutt.
Ticket information from Concert Secretary, David Howe.
Bandsman leaves on a high note!
Long serving bandsman Leigh Baker has left B&R after many years of service. Leigh, originally from Leicestershire, joined B&R while studying at Huddersfield University.
Leigh Baker (right) receiving his award from Brighouse & Rastrick Band Chairman Paul Beaumont at the annual Christmas Concert, Brighouse Methodist Church.
He has been a Baritone player with the band for 19 years and over the past decade he has also developed his considerable skills as a composer and arranger of brass band music. Although leaving as a playing member, Leigh continues as the band’s composer in residence. He lives in Hightown with his young family and is Head of Music at Honley High School, near Holmfirth. Leigh was presented with an engraved silver salver by B&R President, Paul Beaumont.
Brighouse Trombones Feature at BTS Competition
Our trombone section were invited to give a concert recital at the recent North West Solo and Quartet competition run by the British Trombone Society. The quartet performed a variety of music from classical to jazz idioms and everything in between!
The quartet (right to left): Chris Gomersall, Steve March, Peter Lacey,Tony Robertson
The audience members and contest officials gave the quartet glowing praise and thanks for their contribution to the success of the day.
Brighouse & Rastrick Band exclusively play Yamaha Xeno cornets
The new model has been developed in close collaboration with some of the worlds best players.
The XENO cornet, whilst having it's own distinct design characteristics, does maintain some of the fundamental and finer features of the earlier Maestro cornet design. With the new model, Yamaha have fulfilled their ambitious objectives in aligning greater power and projection whilst maintaining an intrinsically rich quality of sound.
The Brighouse & Rastrick Band cornet section (above) are proud to play exclusively on Yamaha XENO cornets.
Brighouse & Rastrick take the Entertainment Awards
Sunday 15th November saw the final major brass competition of 2009, Brass in Concert, take place at a sold out Sage Centre in Gateshead, standing proud on the banks of the River Tyne.
The Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band took top honours in the Entertainments category of this ever-popular event with a near perfect 59 out of 60 points. B&R's Composer in Residence, Leigh Baker helped earn this award for the band with his arrangement of the Dixieland classic Tiger Rag, featuring Shaun Crowther on Eb bass, sousaphone, trombone and cornet complete with a fantastic Dixieland quintet. This certainly was a crowd pleaser, with judges Nigel Boddice and Derek Broadbent remarking ‘great stuff, everybody loved it’, even if some of the audience had to avoid instruments being launched from the stage! Sandy Smith arranged the band's opener, an impressive big band version of Henry Mancini's ‘It Had Better Be Tonight’, which set the crowd alight and led well to the band's featured soloist, Principal Euphonium player Steven Walsh. Steven dedicated Pearce's beautiful arrangement of ‘Macushla’ to his former tutor and euphonium legend Geoffrey Whitham, who sadly passed away earlier in the year. This delicate and heart-felt performance left hardly a dry eye in the hall. Sandy's craftsmanship with the pen was shown again with a new arrangement of Where Our Flag Waves by Johann Strauss with which the band demonstrated a real Austrian swagger and deservedly earned themselves their second award of the day for Best Own Choice March, for the fourth consecutive year.
Led by 8-times winning conductor Richard Evans, the band closed their programme with a new composition, Enchanted Kingdom, by the increasingly-popular composer Paul Lovatt-Cooper which was a delight to play as well as listen to, helping the band attain third place in the Music & Performance category and earning the band a very respectful 4th place overall, joined on points with current World Champion band and last years winners Cory. Just 2 points separated the top four which goes to show how tough a decision it must have been for the judges, with much of the audience were taken aback when B&R were denied taking their 3rd BiC title back to West Ridings.
The band would like to take this opportunity to thank Sandy, Paul and Leigh for their fantastic compositions, Richard Evans for his musicianship and constant entertainment and to everyone else involved in helping the band put on a great show.
New Players
Brighouse & Rastrick has announced the signing of Stuart Lingard on flugel horn.
It means that the former principal cornet player of the YBS Band will team up with his mentor Professor David King. Stuart made his debut with the band in recent concerts in Harrogate and immediately made a great impression.
Also joining Brighouse in the New Year is former player Mick Morris on Eb tuba. His appointment is due to the departure Martin Gill who has served the band for 12 years. Martin leaves in order to concentrate on his thriving business and young family.
Martin Gill (right) receiving an award from Brighouse & Rastrick Band Chairman Paul Beaumont at the annual Christmas Concert, Brighouse Methodist Church.
The Band would like to thank Martin for his dedication and musicianship throughout the many years playing with B&R and wish him well with his future pursuits.