Talented musician Jonathan Bates has been appointed principal tenor horn at the renowned Black Dyke Band.

And that means he has achieved a childhood ambition – at the age of 18.

Jonny, of Skelmanthorpe, has always been a precocious talent.

He started his career aged nine at the Thurlstone Band where proud father Graham is musical director.

Graham remembers Jonny listing his ambitions on the band’s website.

Jonny, just 11 at the time, wrote that he wanted to be “principal horn at the National Youth Band and Black Dyke.”

He achieved the first part of that aim when he reached the pinnacle at the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain in 2010.

And now he has been given the most prestigious seat at one of the world’s top brass bands.

Thanks to the support of his bands, his family and tutors Lawrence Mann MBE, Mark Bentham and Owen Farr, Jonny’s musical career developed at an unprecedented pace.

Jonny reached the top echelons of the brass band movement by the age of 13 when he joined the Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band, having previously also played with Elland Silver and Skelmanthorpe B on solo horn.

He then joined the Brighouse & Rastrick Band and went on to win the National Brass Band Championships at the Royal Albert Hall.

He joined the Queensbury-based Black Dyke Band in 2010.

Jonny has won countless trophies and reached the Brass Final of the 2012 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.

Jonny, also a composer, is arranging an All-Star Youth Band with top young players from around the country performing a concert in St Paul’s Hall, Huddersfield, on Saturday October 19, featuring guest soloist Richard Marshall, principal cornet of the Black Dyke Band.

Proceeds from the concert will go to forces charity Help for Heroes.

Jonny has just moved to Manchester to continue his musical education at the Royal Northern College of Music, where a joint study course has been reinstated especially for him to study both performance and composition.