50th Anniversary!

I should have posted about this a while back, but other stuff got in the way and it all sort of got away from me.

This is the 50th anniversary of the founding of my beloved Croydon Symphonic Band. We're having quite a year already, last month we played the first of our special 50th anniversary concerts at the Fairfield Hall ~ although we may think of this hall as a local Croydon facility it is actually still one of the best Concert Halls in the Country, if not Europe! ~ we may not fill the 2,000 seater auditorium, but we generally mange to get a few hundred which is great for all of us. Next month we will be playing at the finals of teh National Concert Band Festival and then in June we will be back at the Fairfield for the second of our Gala Concerts, when we will be premiering a new work by a major British Composer! It is all very exciting.

One of the things that makes this band so special for me is how long I have been friends with some of the other members, not only have we been in this band for ages, but some of us were even in the Schools Band together. Maybe to save all our blushes I shouldn't work out exactly how long some of us have known each other!

Of course it's not all old farts like me, our music appeals across generations and it's always fun to be with young people, although I am finding that some of my "young" friends are now celebrating their 50th birthdays, and there are plenty of members of teh band who weren't born when the band was started.

These photos were all taken during the final rehearsal on the platform at the Fairfield, by a professional photographer we engaged, just this final one is of the actual performance ~ and yes that is a harp in a concert band!

We have two more concerts this season, and I'm hoping that one of my pieces "Transitions" will be played at one of them.