North Midlands Top Brass (again!) as busy weekend raises charity cash

A busy weekend for Newstead Brass raised over £200 for the Nottingham Evening Post / Maggie’s Appeal for a new cancer care centre in Nottingham and saw the band retain their position as the North Midlands top brass band, narrowly missing out on a second consecutive appearance at the National Brass Band Championships.

‘Music of the World’ attracted a capacity audience to Hucknall’s Seymour Road Baptist Church on Friday March 12th as musical director Duncan Beckley led the band through an international selection of music from Europe, North and South America. Featured soloists were Kirk Turner (principal cornet), Michael Corden (flugel) and Lynden Cooper (euphonium ) who also compered the event. The audience were invited to make donations in lieu of an admission charge, and after deduction of expenses, over £220 was raised for the Maggie’s Appeal.

A highlight of the concert was a performance of George Lloyd’s ‘English Heritage’, the music set for the qualifying rounds of the National Brass Band Championships, with the Midlands heat taking place in Bedworth on Sunday March 14th.

80 bands took part in this year’s Midland championships, with 12, including Newstead, in the highest ‘championship’ section. Adjudicators David Read MBE and Dr Robert Childs commended all the bands, but emphasised that the top four bands had provided three very good and one excellent performance. Only two national finals qualification places were available and these went to the Virtuosi GUS band (Northamptonshire) and runners up Desford Colliery. Third place went to West Midlands based Sovereign brass leaving Newstead as the fourth highly commended band.

It was a generally good day for Nottinghamshire bands with Thoresby taking fifth place in the championship section, Blidworth taking runners up place in Section 2 (and qualification for the national finals), Hucknall and Linby 6th in section 3 with Kirkby 5th and Bestwood 6th in the 24 band section 4.

Newstead return to the concert platform for ‘Music and Song’ at Chilwell Road Methodist Church in Beeston on April 17th, alongside singers Lucy Hall and Andy Ward with Karen Sneade on piano. This will be followed by ‘For England and St. George’ at St John’s Church, Kirkby Woodhouse on Saturday April 24th.