Brass band wins championship title
Whitburn hit number six in world ranking
A West Lothian brass band is celebrating after completing the most successful year in its illustrious 147year history.
Whitburn Band concluded its competitive season with a victory at the Scottish Open championships, held last weekend at Perth Concert Hall.
Performing Peter Graham’s composition ‘Metropolis 1927’ under the baton of Professor Nicholas Childs, Whitburn, defeated bands from across Scotland, England and America to win the contest for the fourth year in a row. Scott Forrest, the band’s soprano cornet player, also picked up the award for Best Instrumentalist.
The result means that in 2017, Whitburn Band has won the Scottish Championships, the Scottish Open and the prestigious Grand Shield competition in Blackpool.
The band also finished runner up at the British Open at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, the most prestigious brass band competition in the world, and sixth at the National Championships of Great Britain, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Whitburn’s success has propelled the West Lothian band to sixth place in the brass band world rankings.
Band president, David Kinross, said: “The band deserve these results for their hard work, I’m really proud to be associated with a team that pulls for each other in the way they do. All of our conductors and committee members have given them a platform that they’ve capitalised upon and it’s something that I think will grow again next year.”
Before that, Whitburn will appear in Christmas concerts on Tuesday (December 5) at Ross High School in Tranent, on December 16, at the Howden Park Centre in Livingston and the following evening in Whitburn.