 |
Links
|
 | |
|
Fostering the future |
|
The 2009 Black Dyke Brass Arts Festival will be a special year in the band’s long and distinguished history. The festival aims to pass on some of its hard-won core values to future generations, to place new music alongside established repertoire, and to counterpoint some stars of the future with legends of the past and present. This year’s Festival marks the start of the band’s five-year commissioning policy, which will culminate in 2014 with the premiere of a substantial new score by the leading international composer James McMillan.
The festival starts with an on-line lecture-recital as the band and its director give an illustrated overview of their 155-year history, beginning with rare music taken from John Foster’s 1855 octet books, also music from the Golden Period, featuring Elgar, Holst and Ireland. The band’s lecture will be available as a worldwide educational resource on the Black Dyke website during and after the weekend. One of the over-riding ambitions at Queensbury is to involve and inspire young performers to aim at the highest level. Accordingly, there will be a young composer’s workshop led by Paul Hamlyn Award winner Emily Howard, and a combined performance featuring Black Dyke in concert with the 60 young musicians of the Yorkshire Youth Brass Band. The British Trombone Society have accepted an invitation to participate in the Lower Brass Focus, when it is anticipated that 120 local players will join a sequence of daytime workshops, and we are pleased that New Music, including scores by Prof. Peter Graham and Philip Harper will feature prominently.
The Black Dyke Band stands at the centre of a worldwide culture, ranging from Australasia to Scandinavia and North America. Thanks to its wide legacy of recording and an increasing amount of internet performance, brass players around the globe regard its activities as a musical high-water mark, and we believe that by supporting its continuing activities, the social and musical values of the United Kingdom are equally well served.
The band would like to acknowledge the wonderful partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University and this year is also supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, where the accent is firmly on ‘Partnering the Past and Fostering the Future’. |