Blog - 2019
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With our National Finals success and our “Last Night of the Proms” concert now behind us...
Posted November 29, 2019
With our National Finals success and our “Last Night of the Proms” concert now behind us...
Posted November 29, 2019
With our National Finals success and our “Last Night of the Proms” concert now behind us, you would think it would be a quieter time for the Boarshurst Silver Band. But you know what they say, “no rest for the wicked”!
By the time October came around, it was almost as if the band was suffering withdrawal symptoms and fancied the challenge of one more competition (or should we say James fancied the challenge of one more competition). So on Sunday 6th October, we all hopped on a coach and headed over to the Heritage High School in Clowne for the Bolsover Festival of Brass.
The festival is an entertainment contest, something that we’re less familiar with as a band, but with two programmes of varied music, we tackled both the first and championship sections. As was expected with a contest like this, the day saw several of our competitors throwing caution to the wind and putting on some rather heavily choreographed performances, as well as some pretty daring and questionable outfits!
But after a long of day of contesting and being directed between various school halls and classrooms, the band were delighted to find out that we had been successful in qualifying for the Spring Festival, a contest that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2020! As Boarshurst Silver Band has never participated in the Spring Festival before, we are all immensely proud to be competing in the contest’s Senior Trophy next year.
Most recently, the band has been extremely busy over the Remembrance Day weekend. In addition to the honour of playing at the Oldham Festival of Remembrance for the second year running alongside our friends at the Dobcross Youth Band, the Oldham Scottish Pipe Band and Katie Spitfire, we also performed as part of the Royton Remembrance Service on a very crisp and cold Sunday morning. A special mention goes to Ryan (our principal cornet) for his moving performance of the Last Post in those frosty conditions! The Sunday evening then saw us return to our spiritual home of Boarshurst Band Club to perform our annual Concert of Remembrance. A very busy but very poignant weekend for the band and the community.
With the trees now shedding their leaves, the dark nights really creeping in and Halloween a distant memory, it feels like Christmas is really upon us! When you go into the supermarkets, all you see are festive decorations, tubs of chocolates, and meter-long tubes of Jaffa Cakes. Meanwhile, while friends and families are sorting their Christmas lists and putting fresh batteries in their singalong Santas, the band are busy dusting off the carol books, Christmas jumpers and sleigh bells as we warm up for the chilly season ahead. Most of the band will no doubt be living off mince pies and mulled wines over the coming weeks. (It’s a chore, but someone has to do it!)
To get your dose of festive cheer, bring your family and friends along to our Christmas Concert at the Boarshurst Band Club on Sunday 22nd December. (Doors open at 7:00pm.) Think singalongs, nativity and mistletoe (if you’re lucky), but we’re not making any promises as to whether we’ll be doing the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ or not… We hope to see you all there as we bring another exciting and fun-filled year to a close!