Ardee Concert Band prove Manchester champions
Ardee Concert Band have just gone and won Platinum again!
Yes the highest award of the day; The Platinum award was bestowed on the Ardonians in the Finals of the National Concert Band Festival in the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on Sunday 8th April 2018 just before 11.30 am, that’s not bad for a Sunday mornings work!
After an early start the band of 47 musicians took to the college of music stage and performed 4 pieces under the baton of their MD Brendan Breslin in the community wind band section.
Partaking in an Irish themed programme they began with ‘Finnegans wake’ a song famous for providing the basis of James Joyce’s final work. They followed with ‘An Irish ayre’, A warm and lyrical composition. ‘Sarah’s Delight’ preceeded the finale of the winning programme.
The winning penultimate piece ‘Gather the Gaels’, is a piece written for the coming together of wind, brass and swing bands from all over Ireland for the Gathering Of The Gales’ Festival In Strabane 2013.
Ardee pipped Strathclyde University Concert Band and their MD Chris Mitchell to the post with their Scottish counterparts taking gold back up North.
Friends to Ardee, Strathclyde hosted the champions in October 2015 in Glasgow for a penultimate concert in St Andrew’s in the Square with Ardee returning the gesture in 2016 in the Bohemian Centre.
Returning in the early hours of Monday morning after a long ferry crossing home the band were greeted at the Bandrooms on Ashwalk with banners and balloons adorning the building to celebrate their huge efforts and success.