Latest news with #brassband
CBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
P.E.I.'s only full brass band celebrates 10-year anniversary
Prince Edward Island's only full brass brand is celebrating its 10-year anniversary Sunday evening with a concert at Zion Presbyterian Church in Charlottetown. The Great George Street Brass Band — named after the historic Charlottetown street of the same name — has been making music since 2015, and is one of only a few full brass bands in existence in the Maritimes. "It's a unique style," said Ken Mayhew, one of the group's founding members. "You can't hear it anywhere else on the Island. "We mostly do this for our own entertainment, but when we can share it with other people that's a really important part of the whole thing, too." The brass band's concert repertoire includes traditional brass band numbers, as well as some contemporary numbers that have been arranged for brass band instruments, Mayhew said. "The idea is to give our audience a wide selection of what we do, why we do it," he said. "We've also picked out a couple of tunes which we kind of hope people are going to get a certain sense of patriotism and maybe get those elbows up just a little bit." Reviving a tradition Brass bands have a long tradition, Mayhew said. During the industrial revolution, brass instruments became less expensive to make and new instruments started using valve technology, which allowed for more notes to be played, he said. The tradition was picked up in a variety of places — particularly in the United Kingdom — and music could often be heard in mines and factories, he said. "There were brass bands on Prince Edward Island in the 1800s and 1900s, but for a lot of reasons that tradition died out," he said. Reviving that tradition — and having fun while doing it — was what the Great George Street Band hoped to do when it was created back in 2015, Mayhew said. '10 successful years' Reflecting on the past decade, Mayhew said the brass band has had "10 successful years, despite the struggles." "Charlottetown particularly is a wonderful place when it comes down to the number of talented musicians who are interested in this kind of thing, but it's also a somewhat limited pool," he said. Many of the band's members are also part of other musical groups, he said, adding that some musicians have multiple rehearsal nights per week with different ensembles. While the anniversary concert provides an opportunity to celebrate the music its members have played over the past decade, Mayhew hopes to commemorate the milestone in another way. Being named after Great George Street, the band has always wanted to get a photo on that street, he said. "We formed in 2015. That's when they put the walls up around Province House. And here we are 10 years in and the walls are still up," he said.
Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Keli review — music is the star in a gritty brass band drama
Tales of British mining communities threatened by pit closures are familiar from hit films such as Brassed Off and Billy Elliot. Martin Green's Keli is in some ways the next chapter in that story. Written and with music by Green (the accordionist from the folk band Lau), the show, which had its premiere at the Royal Lyceum, is set in the recent past in a depressed former mining town halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The pit may be long gone, but the local brass band, once a vital part of the mining life, plays on. The star of the Snaresbrook Mineral and Coal Company Band is Keli (Liberty Black), a gifted tenor horn player, who, at 18, is weighted down by a challenging home
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Keli review – a brass band player's search for solidarity
Towards the end of Martin Green's brass-infused play for the National Theatre of Scotland, there is a resonant metaphor. It makes the connection between directing the breath to play a wind instrument and dealing with life's stresses. 'The skill is in controlling that pressure,' says Keli, a 17-year-old tenor horn player who knows all about pressure. On her plate is a thankless job in a supermarket, a mentally ill mother and a solo spot in a national brass band competition. Making an impressive professional debut, Liberty Black is vigorous and tough in the lead role, a young woman so used to having her defences up, she cannot see when she is being helped – not least by band leader Brian (an avuncular Phil McKee). All she knows is that music gives her order. Keli is a young woman rooted in the landscape. Hers is a village shaped by its industrial heritage, traumatised by the miners' strike and muddling on by in a resolutely modern world. Although Alisa Kalyanova's set cannot decide whether to be literal or impressionistic, its cavernous black walls never let us forget this is a community built on coal. Community is behind another of Green's metaphors, one that resonates less than it should. Falling into a collapsed coalmine, Keli meets the long-dead Willie Knox (a sonorous Billy Mack), famed not only for his prize-winning tenor horn playing, but also for heroically surviving a mining accident. An old-school socialist, he is thinking of both music and industry when he eulogises the 'combined efforts of determined souls'. It is a powerful sentiment, but in focusing so tightly on one woman's story, the play is less about the communal than the individual. Only when, magnificently, the Whitburn Band (alternating with Kingdom Brass) takes to the stage at the end of Bryony Shanahan's production do we get a sense of collective endeavour. At the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 17 May. Then touring until 14 June
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Thousands expected to attend Helston's Flora Day
Thousands of people are expected in Helston, in Cornwall, for the annual Flora Day festival. The event marks the end of winter and coming of summer, and has been celebrated for hundreds of years. The celebration has remained virtually unchanged for more than 200 years, with about 20,000 to 25,000 attending each year. During the day thousands of formally dressed dancers promenade their way in and out of homes and shops which have been decorated with spring flowers, following the beat from a brass band. The event is celebrated every year on 8 May, unless the date falls on a Sunday, the Sabbath, or Monday, Market Day, in which case it is held on the preceding Saturday. It begins at the Guildhall at 07:00 BST with the Early Morning or First Dance which was, in times gone by, the dance for workers and servants. This is followed by dances from pupils at Helston's four schools and couples dancing. At 17:00, the Evening Dance sees the same participants of the Early Morning Dance return to retrace the route of the Midday Dance. Organisers said Helston Town Centre would be closed to all non-emergency traffic between 05:30 and 22:00 BST. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ More on this story Related internet links
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Thousands expected to attend Helston's Flora Day
Thousands of people are expected in Helston, in Cornwall, for the annual Flora Day festival. The event marks the end of winter and coming of summer, and has been celebrated for hundreds of years. The celebration has remained virtually unchanged for more than 200 years, with about 20,000 to 25,000 attending each year. During the day thousands of formally dressed dancers promenade their way in and out of homes and shops which have been decorated with spring flowers, following the beat from a brass band. The event is celebrated every year on 8 May, unless the date falls on a Sunday, the Sabbath, or Monday, Market Day, in which case it is held on the preceding Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT It begins at the Guildhall at 07:00 BST with the Early Morning or First Dance which was, in times gone by, the dance for workers and servants. This is followed by dances from pupils at Helston's four schools and couples dancing. At 17:00, the Evening Dance sees the same participants of the Early Morning Dance return to retrace the route of the Midday Dance. Organisers said Helston Town Centre would be closed to all non-emergency traffic between 05:30 and 22:00 BST. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ More on this story Related internet links
