Yamaha Musical Instruments recently organised a successful 'Young Band Clinic' weekend in The Netherlands.

Dutch links

In partnership with hosts the Pro-Rege B Band from Heerenveen and their conductor Hendry Van Loo it was a day aimed at inspiring young players form a number of bands in their musical development.

Yamaha artists, Russell Gray, Armin Bachmann, Margie Antrobus and Arfon Owen lead tutti and group rehearsals and workshops.

The following day the team headed to Utrecht where they worked with youngsters from five bands from both The Netherlands and Germany.

On both days Russell led in a warm-up session before an extended ensemble rehearsal on what was to be a world-premiere of a work by Ali Authman entitled 'Terracotta' written specially for the Yamaha Young Band Clinics.

Carousel

Both performance and preparation aspects of playing were also addressed on what was described as the 'Yamaha Carousel', with Margie leading on 'Music is organic', whilst Armin spoke about 'The power of mental work". Arfon shared his ideas on the topic of the 'Processes of creating a musical performance', whilst Russell Gray helped everyone in "Find your inner conductor".

Another highlight was that the players had the opportunity to work with the Yamaha team as they performed as soloists — with them, or even conducting them.

Imaginative

Reflecting on the success of the events, Armin Bachmann told 4BR: "It's great to see how interested people are in the themes of the carousel and how much it inspires them. It was very different and imaginative to give deeper insight into the topics.

From begin on there was a great atmosphere around the music stands and everyone was enthusiastic to play together at the end of the day in the massed band

Commitment

A Yamaha spokesperson told 4BR: "Yamaha continues to invest greatly in our commitment to developing future brass players — and it was so heartening to see witness the eagerness and enthusiasm of the participants as well as hear the obvious talent that they have.

This year Yamaha can look back on successful Young Band Clinics in Slagelse in Denmark and Holmestrand in Norway and we are already looking forward to announcing dates in even more countries in 2025."