Our Youth band have had a great start back after the summer break. On Saturday 7th October the band were delighted to perform at All Saints Church in Wistow in aid of their new roof fund. They helped raise a whopping £400 for the cause whilst entertaining a large and supportive audience who have already invited them back!
The band then went on to compete at the Pogson Bray Entertainment Contest where they were very pleased to be awarded the ‘Best Youth Band 2017’ prize. They competed against tough competition and were commended for both their deportment and stage presence by adjudicator David Ashworth.
Shepherd Group Band were very pleased to take third place at the recent Bolsover Festival of Brass. This is an incredibly popular entertainment contest which is streamed live over the internet, reaching audiences in thirty-two countries and over three-hundred and sixty towns and cities.
Competing in the Championship Section, the band’s programme followed a Folk Song inspired set, starting with the beautifully choreographed Norwegian Folk song, Gøta, before bursting into a energetically charged romp through a Russian folk festival. The band’s soloist for the day was principal Cornetist, Andy Novell, who impressed with his lyrical treatment of Pater Noster. The energetic Molly’s Wake was next, before the band’s vocal talents were at the forefront of the wonderful Knut Liten Og Sylvelin finale.
Adjudicator Steven Mead summed up his comments on the performance as, “I like the way your programme has a connected theme, it’s a strong approach to programme building. Thank you for this enjoyable and well conceived programme, your audiences will love it!”
The Shepherd Group of Bands were out in force at the recently held Easingwold March and Hymn Tune competition. The competition centres around the Market Place in Easingwold and this year the competition attracted no less than 13 bands from as far as Newcastle to Dobcross to Barnsley .
This was a first for our group as three of our bands took part in the competition, this is the first time this has ever happened in the history of the bands. The Senior Band , Concert Band and the Youth Band all competed so we had in excess of 100 players out on the night.
The evening saw a mix of fortunes but on the whole a very successful night all round
The Senior band came away with Best Band on the March , Best Hymn Tune overall , Best 1st Section Band and 2nd overall in the competition. To achieve this we had to beat a number of championship graded bands so a very commendable nights work, the Senior Band played the Hymn tune Love Unknown followed by the March Knight Templar
The Concert Band were very pleased with winning the best Hymn tune for unregistered bands, they played the Hymn Eventide followed by the march Punchinello
The Youth Band didn’t fare so well however, it was a fantastic experience for the youngsters to get out a play in a competition such as this against all section bands. They played the hymn tune Aurelia followed by the March Old Comrades.
A fantastic night was had by all and we are hoping to be able to compete in the contest again next year and who’s knows we might have four bands out ?
Imagine the scene, a cloudless sky, the sun shining and hundreds o people being royally entertained by our Concert Band. Sounds great doesn’t it? And it certainly was!
Not a stock photo at all…
Last Sunday, July 16th, saw the Concert band return to Filey bandstand for one of our favourite concerts of the year and as we like to say, “ we didn’t fail to disappoint ”.
The Concert Band were on cracking form and entertained the huge crowd with our selection of singalong, wavealong and even dancealong numbers. We featured 3 stand up soloists in Louis McClaren on cornet, Adrian Fox on trombone and Jenny Mansell on tenor horn. Isobel Thomson on flugelhorn also gave her always faultless performance at the beginning of Angels, by Robbie William, a piece that the band dedicated to the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing in May.
David Bull, the flamboyant Master of Ceremonies at Filey, was again thrilled with the Band and the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress made a special point of saying how much they and the audience had enjoyed the concert.
All in all, a great afternoon and great playing from the Concert Band.
Already looking forward to Wetherby bandstand on August 20th.
Once again players from all five bands came together to compete in the annual solo competition. Members demonstrated their individual talents with slow melodies, air variations, and technical works. The judge for the evening was Black Dyke solo cornet player David Smith, who had the difficult job of selecting the top two positions in each category. There was such a fantastic array of talent on show and an impressive demonstration of the standard of players across the bands.
Brass Roots
1st Place – Zach Hindle 2nd Place – Elysia Sanderson-Aylett
Brass Roots – 2nd Place Elysia Sanderson-Aylett
Academy Band
1st Place – Henry Bate 2nd Place – James Konefal
HenryJames
Youth Band
1st Place – Tasha Collins 2nd Place – Imogen Fewster
TashaImogen
Concert Band
1st Place – Louis McLaren 2nd Place – Millie Brough-Jones
LouisMillie
Senior Band
1st Place – Isaac Bousfield 2nd Place – Jenny Mansell
The Mbale Brass Band of Uganda, founded by Phillip Monk, a retired Brass Band Player, who thought that giving the members a meal along with the opportunity of learning to play an instrument might help to improve the life chances of some of the young people of this impoverished country.
We at Shepherd Group Brass Bands were so inspired by his story we wanted to help in some way so we decided that at our Christmas Concerts we would arrange a leaving collection to which our audiences contributed very generously. We, ourselves also contributed from the Bands funds and donated some instruments from our members which were surplus to requirements.
We are sure that the members of our audiences at the Rowntree Theatre last Christmas will be pleased to see that their very kind generosity is having very positive results.
The band had a successful weekend playing at the British Open Spring Festival Contest in the wonderful venue of The Spanish Hall at The Blackpool Winter Gardens. The entry into the competition is by invitation only and the organisers take the only the top bands in the country.
The band was placed 12th out of 19 competing bands in the Senior Trophy , and we are delighted to announce that this means we will reappear at the contest again next year. Ian Porthouse and Tom Hutchinson made lots of positive comments about our performance in their adjudicator’s remarks – we should all be very proud of the way the band’s soloists performed on stage – a huge congratulations to all!
Particular thanks must go to our MD, Mr Richard Wilton, for his endless hard work during sectionals and rehearsal in preparing us for this contest. This was a particularly momentous weekend from the band – never before have The Shepherd Group Band been a part of this prestigious contest, but it has recently come to light that the Rowntree Cocoa Works Band were present at the 1959 contest.
The band had been working hard for this year’s Area Championship as a good result would see them bounce straight back into the Championship section for 2018.
Richard had worked the band hard with extra sectional and full band rehearsals. The band had a lot to prove. Before going onto stage we knew that we were playing the piece well however, like all contests it’s about the performance on stage and the thoughts of the adjudicators. There was a sense of expectation building amongst the players as the we walked onto stage and settled ourselves. Any nerves gave way to excitement as we gave a truly awesome performance. All the soloists gave their all more than ably supported by the rest of the band, the performance became the benchmark for the contest. Unfortunately on the day this benchmark was set to high for all the other bands. The band was crowned 1St section North of England Champions and with that came an invitation to the National finals in Cheltenham.
Credit and huge thanks must go to Richard for his tireless dedication to the band but also the soloists and all the band members, whilst individuals shone it was a collective team effort which brought home the silverware.
The band won the 1st Section Trophy, Richard received a trophy for the winning Conductor and as an added bonus Alister Brown our Bass Trombone won the best Trombone trophy, so overall a very good day at the office.
The Band is delighted to announce that we have promoted back into the Championship section from 1st January 2018. After spending just one year in the first section the band is thrilled to be back in the top flight, again. The band achieved this after an excelent reuslt winning the North of Englanf 1st Section Championship on Aeoteroa – The Land of the Long White Cloud
Richard Wilton the Band’s Musical Director said “ it is a great feeling to be straight back into the championship section , everybody has worked so hard recently and we have built a real team in the last few months, we need now to focus on the National finals in Cheltenham and then prepare ourselves for the area Championship s in 2018.”
A few months ago university commitments, relocation and retirements meant that the band was in a very unfortunate position to have lost a number of cornet players all at once. But following our successful third-placed performance in the Championship Section at the Bolsover Entertainment Contest back in October, we had a big recruitment drive and are now back up to full strength, with quite possibly, our strongest team yet.
New principal cornet
Following a long hard search we have also found ourselves a fantastic principal cornet player. Andy Novell has been a friend of the band now for many years and agreed to join the team following his departure from the York Railway Institute Band this autumn. Alongside being an excellent player Andy also brings conducting experience to the table from his time with the Otley Brass Band and we are looking forward to getting him involved with training some of our younger players.
Meet the new players
In total we have acquired 6 new cornet players, all of whom are great local players:
Principal cornet – Andy Novell (top right)
Front row – Andy Grace (middle right) and Rob and Lynne Illsley (middle and bottom left)
Back row – Peter Andrews (top left) and Julia Sanders (bottom right)
Whilst the players have now all been performing with the band over the festive period they will all be competing with the band at the Areas in March on Land of the Long White Cloud and for the bands debut performance at the Spring Festival in May.
MD Richard Wilton Commented:
“Honestly, I’m so thrilled at how well it’s all come together. Back in August when we had players leaving to go to university and I found out we were losing a couple more due to new jobs, I won’t lie, I was really pretty panicked! But our new recruits take our cornet team to completely new levels and I can’t wait to start work on the Area test piece with them. I’m particularly delighted at the signing of Mr Novell, who has now done a couple of concerts with us and brings such classy playing to the cornet section, he really is a pleasure to work with. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Simon Dawson, who has been filling in for me on principal cornet. He has done a fantastic job and I honestly don’t know how we would have coped without him, really top bandsman!”
Organisation on the up
Outside of the Senior Band, the Shepherd Group Brass Band Organisation continues to be on the rise, making up one of the largest brass band communities in Europe with over 150 players and 5 bands, and due to heavy demand we are looking at expanding even further in 2017.
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