News location:

Canberra Today 15°/19° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Famous band on the run

The Grimethorpe Colliery Band... “A top-class brass band sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” asks musical director Brian Grant.

MUSICAL director Brian Grant is pretty sure that Grimethorpe Colliery Band is the busiest band in the world.

He’ll be conducting it on a tour to Canberra this month, its first in 10 years

Formed in 1917, it’s won 96 brass band competitions, but its international fame arises from the involvement of its musicians in the 1996 film “Brassed Off!”

The story? The band was about to contest the National Brass Band Championships at the Royal Albert Hall in 1992 when the British Government announced Grimethorpe was on the list of mines to be shut. Despite, or maybe because of the turmoil, the band became the Champion Band of Great Britain.

Grant wasn’t around for the movie. Officially he only started full-time in September last year.

A serious musician with a military training, he played the cornet (sibling to the trumpet) at school, joining the army as a junior musician at age 15. There followed an intensive and “excellent” training at the army’s music school in England, Kneller Hall, where coincidentally “CityNews” music critic Ian McLean also trained.

Grant is looking forward to coming to Australia with his 29 male musicians (the fact that there are no women in the band is “no special thing”), all of whom have regular day jobs, including Grant himself, who works as a logistic manager.

Grant is unimpressed by the idea that Grimethorpe has been put on the map by the film.

“It’s one of the top bands in the country,” he says, but he does concede that the film brought it into the public light.

So viewed historically, why is it so good?

“If you have a favourite famous orchestra or a football team, people are attracted to join. Only the best players join the band.”

As for the repertoire, there’ll be “March of the Cobblers” and Respighi’s “The Pines of the Appian Way”. Also a favourite piece from the film known as the “Concierto d’Orangejuice” (actually “Concierto de Aranjuez”). Australia’s Tara Morice played that piece in the movie.

“A top-class brass band sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” he asks. “It’s got an ‘everyman’ quality about it… you don’t need to be very musically educated to play in a brass band so it has the common touch.”

Bring tissues for the Percy Grainger arrangement of “Danny Boy”, especially sad in light of the recent death of actor Pete Postlethwaite, who played the role of the bandleader in the film.

Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Llewellyn Hall, 7.30pm, July 30. Bookings to 132849 or www.ticketek.com.au

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Helen Musa

Helen Musa

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews