Our official founding meeting will take place on Thursday 23rd June at 13:30 at Backworth Park Primary School.
We plan to agree the Aims, Objectives, Policies, Management Structure and Financial Guidelines, and elect the Management Committee.
If anyone would like to be invited to attend, or receive details of the outcome, please contact us (click this link).
More good news on the funding front – we have been granted £750 from the John Lewis Partnership Music Matters scheme – that will help pay for another 6 instruments and music stands. Our current funding stands at £3,750. We have an application pending with Youth Music (the Arts Council), and further applications being progressed.
| Previous post | 19th May 2016 | Demos at Balliol Primary |
| Next post | 21st June 2016 | Backworth Park Primary Summer Fair |
We ran more fun demos for the children at Balliol Primary on Tuesday 17th May. These were along the same lines as the successful demo at Backworth Park (see previous post) except that we took each year group 3, 4 and 5 separately, due to the higher number of children – about 70 in total.
Like Backworth Park, every child had the opportunity to blow at least one instrument: p-bone trombone, tromba cornet or trumpet, and every child managed to get a note out – some of them producing an astonishing good, clear, loud tone!
Letters have gone out and we await the returns!
| Previous post | 10th May 2016 | 23 children signed up at Backworth Park Primary |
| Next post | 19th May 2016 | John Lewis Partnership Music Matters |
A total of 23 children have returned the forms to sign up for the brass group starting in September at Backworth Park Primary! That’s a brilliant return and represents very nearly 50% of the children in next years 4, 5 and 6.
We had stated that there was a limit of 20 and we would allocate places on a first come, first served basis, but we’ll review that and try to squeeze them all in if we can.
We will be visiting Balliol Primary next week to give demos to each current year group in years 3, 4 and 5. It is a bigger school than Backworth Park with about 25 in each year group.
| Previous post | 3rd May 2016 | Burradon Community Primary School to host brass group |
| Next post | 19th May 2016 | Demos at Balliol Primary |
We are delighted to announce that Burradon Community Primary School has agreed to be our 3rd school in the start-up project, beginning in Sept 2016, and we are looking forward to bringing brass music back to the village.
Burradon is another ex-pit village and, like most such villages, had it’s own brass band – the Burradon Colliery Band (aka Burradon and Weetslade band) sadly folded in the 1970s.
We are supported by the Burradon and Camperdown Forum, a local community group who are behind the project to restore the Burradon Colliery banner, a replica of which will be paraded at this year’s Durham Miners Gala with the Backworth Colliery Band! The original, restored banner will be unveiled in the School in September and will hang permanently in the school hall.
| Previous post | 27th Apr 2016 | Demo at Backworth Park Primary |
| Next post | 10th May 2016 | 23 children signed up at Backworth Park Primary |
We gave a demo to the year 3, 4 and 5 children at Backworth Park Primary on Tuesday (26th April). Over 40 children came into the hall and sat very nicely while the Headteacher Mrs Crerar introduced us. Natalie was known to many of the children as “Jenny’s mum”!. Amazingly some of the children remembered Gavin from the Christmas concert that we played at in December.
We asked the children if they knew what instruments we were holding…yes: a trombone and a trumpet (a red plastic pbone and a yellow plastic tromba trumpet to be precise), and we showed them what they sounded like. Natalie played an extract of “Let it Go” from the film Frozen on the trumpet, the Gavin played some of “All About that Bass” by Meghan Trainer on the pbone, while the children clapped along.
Then it was the children’s turn – we showed them how to “buzz” (while holding their hand in front of their mouths so as not to spray the person in front!). After a first go at it, we got them to buzz using a “duck face”, then imagine they were blowing through a straw, and then buzz through an “O” formed by their index finger curled inside their thumb.
Mrs Crerar helped us select 6 volunteers to have a go at blowing the instruments: a boy and a girl from each year group. They were brilliant, and with a little coaching here and there, all 6 managed to get a sound out…well done. We were all ready to reassure them that it can take a bit more trial and error and help to do it and not to be disappointed if they didn’t manage straight away, but there was no need. In fact, at the end we let all the children that wanted to have a go, come up and queue for a try on either or both instruments. About 20 did, and they all managed to get a sound out on one or the other, some of them were astonishingly good! We put it down to the excellent coaching, of course.
Before the end, we showed them some instruments they might aspire to play in years to come: a bass trombone and a flugel, while we duetted an arrangement of “Happy” by Pharrell Williams.
A great start. All the children were sent home with letters to get signed and return so they can join the brass group in September.
| Previous post | 4th Apr 2016 | Funding off the mark |
| Next post | 3rd May 2016 | Burradon Community Primary School to host brass group |
We’re excited to be giving a demonstration of our instruments to the year 3-5 children at Backworth Park Primary on Tuesday 26th April. It will give us a chance to get them interested, and demonstrate demand to potential funders.
Great news – we have received our first input of funding! North Tyneside Music Education Hub have contributed £2,000.
Together with a private donation of £1,000 we now have enough money for a set of 20 or so instruments and music stands, which means we can start the project in September.
However, we are pursuing other funding avenues, because the total budget for the project over 2 years will be over £30,000 for 2 schools! That would allow us to buy more instruments, pay a professional music tutor, train the volunteers, take the kids and their families to concerts, and pay expenses, etc.
| Previous post | 29th Feb 2016 | Facebook page |
| Next post | 27th Apr 2016 | Demo at Backworth Park Primary |
We now have a facebook page – please visit and click “Like”!
| Previous post | 18th Feb 2016 | Start up project |
| Next post | 4th Apr 2016 | Funding off the mark |
We are currently applying for funding to start our first brass groups in Sept 2016. Wish us luck!
| Next post | 29th Feb 2016 | Facebook page |