Brass band in tune to take champions title

Musicians with Thoresby Colliery Band, based in Edwinstowe, hit all the right notes to become entertainment champions at the Butlins Mineworkers’ Brass Band Championships.

More than 4,000 bandsmen and women attended the event at the Skegness holiday camp and Thoresby came away with a trophy and a cheque for £1,000.

The programme was put together by the band’s new principal conductor, Melvin White.

The pieces included an innovative version of Ravel’s Bolero, Spain by Chick Corea, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No 5, Mother Of God, Here I Stand by John Tavener and highlights from the finale of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony.

It was the final piece that became a real talking point. Fourteen of the players appeared as ten monks and four nuns. The remaining 13 then launched into the Hallelujah Chorus, from Handel’s Messiah.

Instead of breaking into song, the ecclesiastically garbed 14, apparently from a silent religious sect, proceeded to hold up the appropriate words on prompt cards, often getting them in the wrong order deliberately.

The band have been taking part in a recording of The Music Lives On: Now The Mines Have Gone, which features some of the UK’s historic colliery brass bands. The album is released on Monday (March 1) on 1st Rule Records through Universal Music to co-incide with the 25th anniversary of the end of the miners’ strike.

It includes tracks of classic songs, such as Largo from the New World Symphony, Concerto de Aranjuez, McArthur Park and He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother — DAB.