Brass bands: Bands set to fill the streets with music

Jun 26 2009 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

LAST MINUTE preparations are underway for this year’s Brighouse March and Hymn Tune Contest which gets under way on Friday.

Prize money for this year’s contest, which runs throughout the weekend, now stands at £2,000. And the winners of the Brighouse and Rastrick Trophy could well be on their way to Holland.

For the contest winners will be invited to the 2010 Euro Brass Drachten contest in Holland, along with concerts in Friesland.

The event organised by Jappie Dijkstra, with sponsorship from Yamaha Music Europe and Friesland Council, will be partnered with the Brighouse Festival next year when the Euro Brass Champions visit West Yorkshire.

One player in this year’s contest could go home with a brand new cornet, courtesy of sponsors Yamaha Music (UK) Ltd.

They have donated a Xeno cornet for the best principal cornet in the contest.

The first notes in this year’s contest will sound on Friday with a concert in the Central Methodist Church featuring Marsden Silver Prize Band, with guest soloist Black Dyke’s Richard Marshall. Tickets still available for this concert.

If you are out and about in Brighouse on Saturday, you will probably hear competitors in the Brighouse Youth Solo Championships with young players competing at Ebenezer Methodist Church, Bailiff Bridge. Roy Curran will adjudicate the sessions for under 11, under 14 and under 17.

The evening’s gala concert features the Easington Colliery Band, with an appearance by Carl Hopkins, Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire. Carl, who lives in Brighouse, chose the band as his favourite community organisation.

Tickets have sold out already for this popular concert.

The big day in competition terms is Sunday when 26 bands will hit the streets of Brighouse making music non-stop from 1pm throughout the afternoon in this, the 10th contest.

New trophies up for grabs this year include two donated in memory of Stuart Broadbent and Terry Nuttall, both supporters of the Brighouse Festival who died recently.

Organisers expect this to be a really competitive festival with the Championship represented by Marsden, Skelmanthorpe, Hammonds Saltaire and Easington with a good cross section of bands running from the youth musicians right through the different sections.