KNELLER HALL 17th JUNE 2009

A First for the Great Western Youth Band

The plan had sounded so simple.  The Great Western Youth Band, from Swindon, had been invited to provide the audience arriving for the Royal Military School of Music’s Concert in the Park at Kneller Hall on the 17 June 2009 with some pre-concert entertainment.  This would be a great honour for the band as they would be the first youth band to be invited to provide such entertainment.

On the day, the weather was cool, overcast with a blustery wind.  The Royal Military School had provided a semi-circle of chairs in-front of their bandstand, so when the Great Western Youth Band took their seats everything was quickly prepared.  At 1900 hours, the mounted trumpeters from the Band of the Life Guards sounded the start of the entertainment after which the Great Western Youth Band was able to start their programme.  Playing a varied programme for 45 minutes, under the baton of their bandmaster Mr John Winterflood, the band played to a growing, knowledgeable and appreciative audience settling down with their picnics awaiting the main concert.  By the end of the programme, the discipline and musicality of the Great Western Youth Band, with members as young as 10 years-old playing in the concert, had won over a new group of admirers.  ‘I had a great time.  Weren’t there a lot of people’ said Christopher, aged 10 playing 3^rd Cornet.

Their job well done, in difficult weather conditions, the band helped dismantle their playing area so ensuring that the main event, with its nominated charity as the British Disabled Water Ski Association, could start promptly at 2000 hours.  ‘We felt very honoured to be invited to play here this evening and wanted to do well, particularly as the first youth band asked to do so.  We were all very pleased with the way the event went.  The young people played their heart’s out despite the less than ideal weather and they were a great credit to the hard work that had gone in behind the scenes,’ commented Mr Paul Richards, Chairman of the Great Western Youth Band.