Inaugural BrassFestUK Delivers the Spirit of Brass Around the Country

Over the weekend of the 7th to 9th July, the inaugural BrassFestUK event was held. With some lovely weather and a great deal of enthusiasm, over 130 brass bands across Great Britain performed to members of the public to show the country just how wonderful the sound of a brass band is.

BrassFestUK was a project that set out to encourage as many brass bands as possible to head out to the local bandstand, park, market square, pub garden, or anywhere really, to go and perform to the public.

All armed with the commissioned piece for the event, ‘The Spirit of Brass’ which was composed by composer and arranger, Gavin Somerset, more than 3,000 bandsmen and women played to an estimated audience in excess of 10,000 people over the 3 days.

Pennine Music and the World’s number one ranked band, The Cory Band both supported the event with The Cory Band recording the commissioned piece.

Organiser Rob Tompkins visited The Cory Band and Cory Academy in Brecon on Saturday night to hear a concert which was part of the BrassFestUK event. The concert included a combined band performance of ‘The Spirit of Brass’.

Rob told A4B: “Hearing both bands performing Gavin’s piece was wonderful, some of the children in academy can’t have been more than 7 years old and to see their faces when they were joined by the greatest band in the world was a great sight. The smiles on their faces and the sound of both bands playing was a real pleasure to witness and sounded amazing.

The weekend has been a great success, so many bands playing and so much positive feedback, I am now looking to encourage more bands and include a composition competition from which we will get the BrassFestUK 2018 commissioned piece. The plan now is to open up the event to include bands from across the world and a composition contest should be really exciting. I am already in discussions with Gavin Somerset and Philip Harper, both of whom are very keen to be part of this addition to the event.”

With Pennine Music and Gavin Somerset agreeing to continue to support the event and The Cory Band and Philip Harper also indicating they want to be involved in next years BrassFestUK, it looks like this new initiative is fast becoming an event that everyone will want to be part of.