Reunion 2011

On Saturday 9th July at The Oakley Centre in Crewe, Lions Youth Brass celebrated its 21st birthday. In an evening packed with nostalgia and great entertainment The Lions Youth Brass from Sandbach in Cheshire had a great evening with many old friends and invited special guests.

The day had taken much organising and none more so than trying to contact former players to come back and form a Lions Reunion band for one night, but at 12.15, the worries were over as 43 past members struck the first note of Star Lake and began their rehearsal for the evening concert.

Following the rehearsal, at 3.30pm there was a grand reception where all players past and present came together with invited guests to talk about the great achievements of the band and also to catch up on what players had been up to after they had left the band.

There was a tremendous buffet organised by the Lions Committee, who work so hard for the band, and a great display of memorabilia. Also, Paul Darlington had a set up a large screen which played performances from all the bands over the last few years.

At 5pm it was time to cut the celebration cake and toast the bands anniversary where Nigel Birch, the Youth Bands current Musical Director was presented with a marvellous book of photographs that had followed his career with the band. This book was put together by the treasurer Ruth Jenkins and it was obvious a great deal of time and effort had gone into making this a special present for Nigel.

The concert began at 6pm with the Lions Youth Brass and their Musical Director Nigel Birch in great form. The band has had a very successful year with their superb second place in the advanced section of the National Championships and at the same time Nigel was presented with The Brian Hicks memorial trophy for outstanding service to Youth Brass Bands. They began with The Raiders of the Lost Ark and Steel Skies. Following those opening pieces the band welcomed their special guest soloist for the evening, Mark Wilkinson, Principal Cornet of The Fodens Band. Mark is a regular visitor to Lions as he has tutored many of the players from time to time and has also set up many workshops for Lions. Mark showed why he is so respected in the brass band movement with a fantastic performance of the cornet classic, Hailstorm.

One of the two guest conductors for the evening was Mike Fowles, Associate conductor of Fodens and also Musical Associate of Lions Youth Brass, who directed the next two pieces, Marks encore Share My Yoke and the Tom Jones hit, Sex Bomb. Mike Fowles is a regular visitor to Lions and has helped to direct the band both musically and artistically over the past three years.

The first part of the programme was completed by Nigel Birch directing the Youth Band in An American Trilogy.

The Youth Band then made way for The Beginners section, but during the reorganising of the stage, Neil Barnett, who presented the concert very professionally as M.C. interviewed the bands treasurer Ruth Jenkins who gave a great insight to what goes on behind the scenes and also shared some of her own special memories with the audience.

The Beginners section which was directed by Christopher Thompson, is constantly around 30 members, and began with a piece called Tromp of the Romans and even though they have an average age of around 9years they played with an assured maturity which you would not expect from players of this age.

During their performance Chris paid tribute to the other members of his team, Hayley Scott, Andrew Felton and Matthew Darlington, who unfortunately was taking part in his last Lions event for a while due to going to study in Newcastle for the next 12 months.

The Beginners finished their set with the Colours suite which was written for them by the organisations composer in residence Ian Raisbeck for their debut performance in The National Youth Championships earlier this year.

The Junior band were up next and while we getting ready for them Neil Barnett interviewed Katie Raisbeck, one of the great success stories of Lions Youth Brass. Katie started playing the cornet at the age of 15 and after a few lessons from Nigel Birch, decided cornet was not for her and changed to the baritone. Within 10 years Katie has achieved so much. Having studied at The Royal Northern College under David Thornton, she progressed through The Roberts Bakery, Wingates and Fairy Bands before joining the world famous Black Dyke Band with whom in the last few weeks she has won The English Nationals and will be playing in The European Championships next year. A great achievement and one that all at Lions Youth Brass are very proud of, and it was great for Katie to share her achievements with the audience.

The Raisbeck household is a very busy one as Katie’s husband, Ian, who is another great Lions success story is a front row cornet player with Fodens, Lions Youth Brass Composer in residence and The Musical Director of The Lions Junior Brass.

They began their program with Eye of the Tiger and the standard of the performance was incredibly good. Ian has worked wonders with this group of young players and is constantly producing some talented performers for the Youth Band. Following the Roman Wall by Stuart Johnson, Catharine Flanders was featured in the hymn tune Nottingham. Catharine is only 10 years old but is already showing that she could be a star of the future. Following the ever popular Floral Dance the Junior Band finished in great style with La Bamba.

It was time for a break and the audience were invited to enjoy the remainder of the buffet and a drink and also to purchase raffle tickets and a recording from the bands range of compact discs.

The second half belonged to the Re-union Band and on just over two hours rehearsal set off in cracking form under the direction of Nigel Birch in Eric Balls Star Lake. They followed that up with Andrew Lloyd-Webbers Love Changes Everything which featured Michael Pollitt on cornet, who since leaving Lions has become principal cornet of The Roberts Bakery Band.

Lions Youth Brass is run by a very hard working committee of parents of players both past and present and is superbly lead by Jane Stubbs who earlier this year was awarded the honour of Citizen of the Year, for services to the local community, by The Rotary Club of Sandbach. The following piece was a special request for Jane of one of her all-time favourites as Ian Raisbeck showed off his considerable talents in The Post Horn Galop. Following The Glenn Special it was time to welcome the second guest conductor of the evening, Paul Andrews. Paul has a long association with the organisation as he conducted the band for a short time in the late 90’s and is also responsible for all the repairs and maintenance of the organisations instruments. Paul directed the premier performance of an arrangement of Hey Jude by Ian Raisbeck, which had been commissioned for the evening and also Mark Wilkinson’s final solo The Lazy Trumpeter. Paul Andrews’s final piece was Bugulars Holiday which featured Mark Wilkinson, Ian Raisbeck, Tom Hancock, Michael Pollitt and Amy Ball. It was really good to see Paul Andrews taking the band once again and also share his banding experiences with the audience.

At this point in the program Nigel made a presentation to Neil Barnett, for professionally keeping the programming running all evening and also to Amy Ball the current Youth Band Principal Cornet who richly deserved her Bandsperson of the year award.

Nigel Birch then returned to take the final part of the evening with an old favourite instant concert and then Alex Holsgrove who has gone on to be Principal Euphonium with The Roberts Bakery Band gave an outstanding performance of another classic solo, La Belle Americaine. The Pirates of the Caribbean is a very popular film at the moment and the music from it was enjoyed by all the audience.

Before the finale Nigel paid tribute to everyone who had taken part in the concert and to everyone who had made this anniversary special and a great success. He also pointed out that Lions Youth Brass has reached some very high points in its history, but it must not stop here, the organisation wants to continue to develop and continue to provide young people with great opportunities and provide a happy musical and social environment.

The concert finished with the audience on their feet following all four bands performance of the bands flagship piece, The Can Can, and also in recognition of an outstanding evening of nostalgia and great entertainment.

Nigel Birch
Musical Director Lions Youth Brass

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