Memorial Trophy Unveiled By Emley

Emley Band are proud to unveil a new trophy to be presented to the ‘best percussion section’ in the upcoming Yorkshire Regional Championship 3rd Section.

The Gary Brown Memorial Trophy has been designed to commemorate our late chairman. He was always at the heart of everything Emley band tried to do and was responsible for many of our successful projects both on and off stage.

The trophy is going to a percussion section, even though Gary started out in brass bands as a bass player. Following a major operation to remove a tumour, he was unable to muster the puff to carry on playing brass in the band. But this wouldn’t deter a bandsman like Gary, so he joined the percussion team and began to learn the skills required to play the multitude of instruments at the back! He settled on Timpani as his favourite (it was closest to his mates in the bass section) and was able to spend a few more years playing for the band. As his cancer progressed he found a mix of band and family helped give him things to strive towards, non more so than finding out the 2018 test piece had a Timp Solo in it. This drove him onward to get on the Huddersfield Town Hall stage one more time and be a part of another performance.

Gary’s last contest performance with Emley was at Brass at the Guild in 2019 where, fittingly, he was part of the team winning the best percussion trophy. Because of this, it seemed the right way to go was to have a trophy (a pair of timp sticks!) to remember him by. He was the very best of us, and we miss him dearly at Emley Brass Band.