New Musical Director for Summerbridge and Dacre

Published in Band News on 2013-11-08 by Summerbridge and Dacre Silver Band

More news from Summerbridge and Dacre Silver Band

The Summerbridge and Dacre Prize Silver Band is one of two remaining bands in Nidderdale in North Yorkshire. They have just recently appoointed a Musical Director, Mr Charles Hindmarsh who aims to build the band back up.

Over 70 years ago Nidderdale was awash with musical groups, not just bands. Music was a big part of everyday life as entertainment venues were few and far between in the dale.  Television was not around and radio was relatively new.  Most of the villages had their own brass band and many of these were formed around the Temperance movement.  There were numerous bands within the dale at Summerbridge and Dacre, Darley,  Lofthouse and Middlesmoor, Pateleybridge ,Greenhow Hill, Burnt Yates, Shaw Mills and Birstwith.  It is quite sad to think that only two still bands remain, but this pattern exists across Yorkshire. As entertainment is all too easily available in other forms, performing live music isn’t as important as it once was.

The band has been through a difficult time following the death of a much loved and highly respected musical director, Arthur Layfield. However it is building back up again and it now rehearses regularly on Thursday nights between 7:30 and 9:30pm in Darley in the Methodist church hall. We would welcome back any past players to the band and of course welcome new players. 

If there are children learning a brass instrument at a local school or others, including adults who would like to learn the instrument from scratch, I will be running a brass class from 7:00pm on Thursday nights for 30 minutes to build up a new generation of brass players to take the band forward.

We cannot of course claim to be best band in Yorkshire, but we can offer a friendly learning and performing environment. If you are interested please contact me Charles Hindmarsh on 07979 686675 or email charles.hindmarsh@tiscali.co.uk. More details about the band can be found on our web site at http://www.nidderdalebrass.co.uk/