On Sunday 10 September I went to Symphony Hall with my son, who is a trombone player, to see a performance by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain Children’s Band. This performance took place in the Jenifer Blackwell Performance Space which is a lovely performance space in the foyer area of Symphony Hall in Birmingham.
Over the same weekend Symphony Hall held the 169th British Open Brass Band Championships which culminated in a Gala Performance featuring Cory Band, Black Dyke and Services for Education Brass Ensembles. The performance my son and I went to see was a pre-gala concert performance by the Children’s Band part of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, a brass band for children aged 8-14 from all over the country. The audience for this performance was made up mainly of the children’s parents and some people who had tickets for the main Gala Performance in Symphony Hall itself. I went along with my son as he is learning to play trombone and I thought it may inspire him to see these excellent young brass players playing in a performance together. He plays in his school brass band, and starts playing in the school’s swing band today, but of course the players in this brass band are some of the best young brass players in the country – how could he not be inspired after hearing them play?
And so we headed off to the Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space, a lovely area for informal and pre-show concerts, right next to the bar and with plenty of seating and tables for people to sit with a drink (and a chocolate coin from the Starbucks in the ICC for my son). As mentioned above, the Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space is within the foyer area of Symphony Hall, and this was a pre-gala concert performance, and so it was free of charge.
We both really enjoyed the performance. The children clearly enjoyed playing the pieces in the show and that enthusiasm they had for the music they were playing came through to us, the audience, making the show a really fun experience for us all to watch. I spotted several children in the band who couldn’t help but move as they were playing the pieces and many of the audience members were moving along with the music, including my son to a couple of the pieces.
The concert featured some fantastic pieces like Lennert van Laenen’s specially commissioned piece Sparkle, a great brass arrangement of the Mick Jagger song Paint It Black and Quincy Jones’ Soul Bossanova. It was great fun! And while the whole band sounded fantastic, and should be very proud of themselves for a fantastic concert, the soloists – both brass and percussion players – should be singled out. Not only for how brave they were to play solos in front of so many people, but also for how very well they played. It was a really enjoyable performance to watch and, as I had hoped, my son said he really enjoyed himself. He liked all of the pieces performed, and I think the whole experience of being there watching the brass band play. We went home and he happily did his trombone practice, inspired by watching children who were around his age, or not much older than him, playing so very well.
Conducted by this year’s National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain Children’s Band Guest Conductor Mareika Gray, I loved her obvious pride in the standard of performance and the achievement of these young people, some of them really very young. She was an engaging presenter, who achieved a great balance of letting us know a bit about the pieces the band were going to play while not talking too much!
To find out more about the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, both the Children’s Band and the Youth Band, click on this link: National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain.
To find out more about Birmingham Symphony Hall, have a look at what is on there, and book tickets follow the following link: Symphony Hall
For a roundup of concerts on at Symphony Hall, as well as other venues in and around Birmingham, UK, please read my September What’s On For Kids In Birmingham
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