Town band’s brass sound is pure gold
A West Lothian outfit is celebrating after becoming the Scottish brass band champions.
Whitburn Band, conducted by Professor Nicholas Childs, won the title for the 21st time with its performance of Wilfred Heaton’s Contest Music at Perth Concert Hall.
Whitburn and Bon Accord Band, who finished runnerup, have now qualified for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, which will be held at the Royal Albert Hall in London in October.
Whitburn has also been invited to represent Scotland at the European Brass Band Championships in Malmo, Sweden in 2023.
Whitburn picked up several individual prizes. Chris Bradley was named Best Cornet player, while there were awards for Scott Forrest (Best Soprano), Andrew McMillan (Best Tenor Horn), Chris Shanks (Best
Euphonium) and Graham Fraser (Best Bass), while the band was also awarded the Best Bass section (Graham, Robert Fraser, Alan Gourlay and Neill Gourlay) and Best Percussion section (Chris Yule, Stephen Duncan and Ryan Bradley).
And there was a double reason to celebrate for
Whitburn Band president and bass trombone player Charlie Farren, who conducted Bo’ness and Carriden Band to victory in the first section of the championships.
Charlie said: “I am delighted for Whitburn after all the hard work we have put in, not just for this contest but over the previous months as we have returned to band following the easing of covid restrictions. It is great to bring the trophy back to West Lothian.
“Congratulations to our conductor Professor Childs, and Bryan Allen, who helped to prepare the band. Congratulations also to all the prizewinners over the whole weekend, and thank you to the
Scottish Brass Band Association for organising the event.”
Whitburn will next be in action as part of an innovative new project from Martin Green, the Ivor Novello winning composer and one third of folk trio Lau.
The band will perform in a live preview of a new audio drama called Keli, starring Anna Russell-Martin and Tam Dean Burn and directed and co-created by Wils Wilson.
The event will also feature the premiere of Split the Air, a new piece of music written for the PRS New Music Biennial by Martin and orchestrated by Benjamin Woodgates.
The performance will take place at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh on Sunday, April 3, at 5pm. Tickets are available on the Lyceum’s website.
The event will also be live streamed, so you can buy your tickets and watch from home.