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Hot on the heels (or should that be trotters! ) of our marvellous Parliament Street performances on the afternoon of July 1st , the Band organisation held a pig racing evening at Acomb Conservative Club to raise money for the many contesting ventures that we are undertaking 2017.

And what a great evening it was!The club was packed with band members, band supporters and club members all keen to have a little flutter on the piggies.

Dave Cussons, The Pig Man, was our genial host for the evening and he made sure that everyone understood how the betting and racing worked and ensured that everyone had a really good time.I think the sight of Richard Wilton jumping up and down, cheering on the piggies he had backed will live long in our memories.

A special mention must go to Kim and Shane for the lovely pie and pea supper they provided.

All in all a fantastic evening!If you weren’t there you missed a treat and we managed to raise a whopping £732 for band funds.

Thank you all who sponsored races, bought pigs and turned up on the evening. We are certainly looking to organise a similar evening for next year.

Yesterday the band held its first ever Golf Tournament. Despite our lovely sponsors kindly providing us with umbrellas the weather thankfully held out. Lots of members from across our organisation took part, both experienced and inexperienced golfers and a fun day was had by all.

We have quite a few enthusiastic golfers within the organisation so it all got quite competitive but the eventual winner of the afternoon’s 18 hole stableford competition was the band’s fabulous MD Richard Wilton. The winners of the 9 hold Texas scramble in the evening were Charles Wilson and Trevor Walters Thompson.

Last Saturday night our Senior Band performed in their annual concert at the beautiful Selby Abbey. The concert itself was a resounding success and both the audience and band absolutely loved it. The programme was a particular hit and included a suite from Stabat Mater, music from the musical Wicked and the roof raising Fire in the Blood.

Richard Wilton, band MD said:

“I think it was the best concert that I have done throughout my entire six years with the band.”

When it went viral….

Bizarrely though the highlight of the concert was what happened afterwards. One of our regular fans decided to film a few of our pieces, one of which was Phillip Harpers exciting new flugelhorn solo Under the Boardwalk played by Paul Stamp. We had a listen to the video and we were so impressed that we decided to publish it on our social media and it’s safe to say its gone crazy. The video has, in under a week, reached 60,000 people and has been viewed significantly more times than the Cory Band equivalent!!

Paul Stamp, the bands flugelhorn player said:

“I actually can’t believe it, it’s just crazy, so many people keep messaging me, people that I haven’t spoken to in years! I’m absolutely delighted that people like it so much.”

Richard also commented:

“Everyone absolutely gave it their all and the reaction on social media to the video is just brilliant… we’re all buzzing!”

You can view the video below:

Today our Senior Band was delighted to play at the wedding of Chloe Walsh and Huw Davies. Chloe is the Senior Band’s Second Trombone player and we were thrilled that she asked us to play at her wedding.

The couple married at St Andrew’s Church in Bishopthorpe and it was an absolutely beautiful service.

On behalf of all the members of the Shepherd Group Brass Band we would like to wish them both congratulations and wish them all the luck in the future.

This Friday our Youth Band went and competed in their VERY FIRST competition! The band went to the Rothwell Competitive Music Festival and came WON their section, against some very tough competition.

The band played in front of a packed out hall and they played absolutely brilliantly. Their programme, picked out by their talented MD Craig Brown, was movie inspired and consisted of:

The 20th Century Fox Theme
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Mission Impossible
Peter Gunn Theme
Eye of the Tiger

The competition in their section was very tough, but the band took command of the evening and played with true drive, determination and, perhaps most importantly, genuine enthusiasm.

Our Youth Band was only founded 5 years ago, so it was a big achievement for the band to even be going to its first competition after such a short space of time! So for them to actually come away champions is such as huge achievement and all of us here at Shepherds are so very very proud of them.

To find out more about joining our Youth Band and learning with us please check out our vacancies page.

As many of you will now be aware the band competed at the North of England Area contest this March in Durham. The band had an absolutely excellent day out in Durham and our end performance of Cambridge Variations is something that we are hugely proud of. 

Unfortunately, despite the band working hard and playing really well the result didn’t go in our favour. Naturally everyone in the band is really disappointed, but we’re all feeling positive and are very much looking forward to competing at the All English International Masters competition in May! We would like to thank all of our lovely supporters and all of those who wished us luck. In particular we owe a huge thanks to our Musical Director Mr Richard Wilton, whose tireless commitment and enthusiasm is the backbone of the band – we really couldn’t do it without him. Onwards and upwards!

We would also like to offer a huge congratulations to the Reg Vardy Band and EYMS and wish luck to both bands at the Royal Albert Hall! Also massive congratulations to all our friends at the Railway Institute Band – a fantastic and well deserved result!