|
Leighton Rich, former director of the Hampshire
County Youth Band has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Leighton Rich was born in South Wales, where he
started playing cornet in his village band and was invited to Join the
National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. After music studies at the Welsh
College of Music and Drama in Cardiff he joined the Regimental Band of the
Coldstream Guards in London.
Later, after ten years teaching in North Yorkshire, where he formed the
Tewit Youth Band in Harrogate, he was appointed Director of the Hampshire
County Youth Band in October 1986 and took up the post in January 1987 until
he retired in June 2003.
Here he had the opportunity to develop his vision of widening the brass band
repertoire with quality music through regular commissions. He gained his
Masters Degree from the University of Southampton in 1993, and was presented
with the acclaimed Mortimer Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians
Guild of London in 1996, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to
the teaching of young brass players and youth bands.
| 
