Sandra Lane
On Sunday 23rd March, Eynsford Concert Band bought together 21 young musicians ranging in age from 9 to 17 from across Kent to join us in an afternoon rehearsal workshop.
As part of our ongoing commitment to encourage youth music, young woodwind and brass musicians from Kent Music and local schools were invited to come along to the open rehearsal with the aim of opening their eyes to the opportunities of continuing their music beyond school and college years, whether it be as a hobby or as a full time career.
The workshop was held at the Bat & Ball Community Centre, Sevenoaks and we were grateful to Sevenoaks Town Council for funding the cost of putting the workshop together and enabling the event to take place.
Under the watchful eye of the bands conductor Mike Smith BA (Mus) LSRM, the young musicians sat along side the ‘older’ members of Eynsford Concert Band as we played through and worked on music from Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite (which some members of ECB have been playing on and off for over 50 years!) to music from Lord of the Rings and original wind band works by Galante and Fernie. It was a great opportunity and experience for some of the younger musicians to take the lead and play solo’s as required, and for the rest of the band to hear and appreciate the up-and-coming local talent.
For Eynsford Concert Band, it was good to see so many young players integrated across the band sections with flutes, clarinets, saxophones, oboes, bassoons, trombones, horns and trumpets all represented. It was one of the few rehearsals where the band had a full and strong horn section!
We hope that following this workshop some of the younger musicians will have caught the ‘bug’ and will come along more regularly to our Tuesday night rehearsals and help us ensure the future of live music performances in Kent and keep Eynsford Concert Band going for years to come!
