While composers of latest music for brass band have usually bought brass band expertise, there are additionally intriguing examples of composers from outdoors the brass banding world taking the plunge with outstanding outcomes. A collaboration between 5 British championship brass bands and BBC Radio 3 is aiming to increase this by commissioning new music from set up composers who haven’t but written for brass band, inviting them to write down a brand new work which inserts the exact format required for nationwide and worldwide championship competitions and thus making certain a minimal of 5 performances.
This revolutionary undertaking is spearheaded by the Cooperation Band, Cory, Flowers, Foden’s and Tredegar City Band alongside conductor Martyn Brabbins who discovered to play the euphonium throughout his youth at Towcester Brass Band. The primary composer is Richard Blackford, whose new work for brass band Orbital is premiered on the Worldwide Brass Band Pageant on the Royal Northern School of Music by the Cory Band, conductor Philip Harper on 25 January 2026 with a broadcast in February and additional performances all through the UK throughout 2026.
The Pageant runs from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 January 2026 and is certainly value exploring: there are premieres of works by Claire Cope, Phil Lawrence, Bruce Broughton, Jacob Vilhelm Larsen, Simon Dobson, Helena Zyskowska, and Dorothy Gates together with works by established composers corresponding to Paul Mealor, Per Nørgård, Derek Bourgeois, Thea Musgrave, Errollyn Wallen, George Lloyd.
Orbital relies on Samantha Harvey’s 2024 Booker Prize profitable novel which follows six astronauts aboard the Worldwide House Station as they orbit Earth, reflecting on topics together with the existence or nature of God, the which means of life, and existential threats corresponding to local weather change. Blackford describes his new piece as “virtuosic, stuffed with drama and contrasts and, I hope – good tunes.“
Philip Harper, talking on behalf of the 5 championship bands commented: “We’re delighted to be engaged on this undertaking collectively. At a number of moments throughout brass band repertoire historical past, new voices have emerged which injected vitality, innovation and new methods of pondering into our music. Composers corresponding to Gilbert Vinter, John McCabe and Philip Wilby have been all well-established earlier than they wrote for brass band later of their careers, with such large and long-lasting impression“.
Full particulars from the RNCM’s web site.
