Kingdom Brass recently celebrated the first full year of their youth development initiative by holding a solo competition for members of their Kingdom Brass Youth Band.

14 contenders

14 of the band’s young players, aged from 8 to 12, performed to a large audience of parents, friends, supporters and members of the senior band.

Great achievement

Lee Bathgate, Chairman of the Kingdom Brass Youth Initiative, told 4BR: "We’ve been planning a solo competition for our young players for a while, and felt the first anniversary of starting to teach through our youth policy was worthwhile timing.

"Last January all of these players were just starting to produce their first few notes, and now they’re performing solos in public — it’s a great achievement."

Last January all of these players were just starting to produce their first few notes, and now they’re performing solos in public — it’s a great achievementLee Bathgate

Flourished

Over the past year, the band has flourished, with performances at Brass in the Park last August, and competing at the Scottish Youth Championships in Perth a few months ago.

"We’re giving our young players every opportunity to perform in their own right as a youth band, as well as appearing alongside the senior band," said Lee.

"There’s obviously a huge distance from youth band to the Championship Section, but we want to inspire everyone involved in our youth band to reach that level, and solo competitions are just one piece of the jigsaw as far as we’re concerned."

Victory

The Youth Solo Contest was won by cornet player Abby Young, with trombonist Liam Mullan in second and 9 year old horn player Claire Miller, third.

Adjudicator for the event was David Neil, conductor of Dunfermline Town Band, who told 4BR: "It was an absolute pleasure. The young lads and lassies all equipped themselves admirably and it was obvious that a lot of hard work had gone into practising each of their pieces."