Levern Valley Community Brass

6th May 2010

This evening we held our 3rd Annual Concert in Springhill Primary School, Barrhead. A varied programme of music was extremely well played by the band as were the solo and group items. This year the different sections in the band were featured to give potential recruits a chance to hear what the various brass instruments look and sound like. No it isn't a saxophone!!

Mrs Helen Glen, Head Teacher of the school, presented the Annual Awards. This year Robbie Farquar received the award for Most Promising Player and the award for Most Improved Player went to Ewan Howie.

Musician of the Year was presented to the band's Flugel Horn player, Gabrielle Brownlie. Gabrielle was the soloist in the horn section's rendition of 'Groovy Kind of Love'.

1st April 2010

The 'new' 2010 band played in it's first concert, taking part in East Renfrewshire Music Service's Annual Concert . When we were invited to take part we did wonder about the date! Fortunately when we got to Newton Mearns Baptist Church there was a very appreciative audience and we were relieved it wasn't an 'April Fool". The band played with a lot of confidence and special mention goes to our new members who are no longer beginners!

25th January 2010

Unfortunately the Open Evening has had to be postponed until later in the year. On the bright side the beginners who started playing in September joined the band and fitted in really well. They were made to feel welcome by the 'auld yins' and we hope they will come back for more!

22nd December 2009

News of our first performance in 2010. We will be taking part in Barrhead Burgh Band's open evening on 25th January. This is being held in the Salvation Army, Barrhead at 7.30

29th November 2009

Scottish Youth Championships in Perth Concert Hall. Unfortunately due to Mr Deans' long-term illness we are unable to take part. This is a disappointment but hopefully we will have some concert work in the new year.

17th September 2009

Rehearsals began at our new venue tonight, Carlibar Primary School. This will allow us to have the use of percussion thanks to East Renfrewshire Instrumental Music Service and enable us to introduce percussion into the band. This is major step forward in our development as a band.

10th September 2009

No rehearsal tonight, off to the Bowling at Xscape in Braehead. Another chance to meet up socially and have some fun for a few hours. The eventual winners were the Trombone section for the second year in a row!

5th September 2009

Brass In The Park has finally arrived. Due to the monsoon weather on the east coast the organisers were unable to use the park and the event was moved indoors to the Scottish Mining Museum. Congratulations to the BITP officials for re-arranging the venue at such short notice.

The band played very well and received a Silver Award from the adjudicator, Nigel Boddice, for our effort. Considering there were 11 bands in our section and Mr Boddice only awarded one Gold Award we were delighted with our achievement.

As usual we had a great team of supporters cheering us on and we looked really smart in our new stage uniform. Roll on next year!

20th August 2009

First rehearsal of the new session. Preparation began for our visit to Brass In The Park next month. Only 2 more rehearsals left! New intake all began tuition this week.

Our new band ties complete with logo also arrived today and look really good.

28th May 2009

This was the date for our Annual Concert in Bourock Church, Barrhead. The increase in membership meant that the concert was moved from the church hall to the church this year. The performance featured music by Mark Vause, Stuart Johnson and Alan Fernie including Basse Dance, Groovy Kind Of Love, I Want To Hold Your Hand and Gonna Fly Now.

Musician of the Year 2008, tuba player Gemma Carse, performed The Policeman's Song and this years winner of the bands Musician of the Year award, Christopher McCloy was joined in a Tenor Horn duet, Theme from Titanic, by Sarah Burns.

The annual awards were presented by Councillor Douglas Yates and in addition to Musician of the Year there were awards for Most Improved Player - Calum Kilpatrick (Cornet) and Most Promising Player - Rebekah Simpson (Trombone).

20th April 2009

The band received news that it had been awarded £5000 through the Scottish Arts Council "Awards For All" scheme. This money will be used to purchase new instruments for the many new recruits who have joined the band this year. We also have 30+ beginners wanting to start playing next August. We are very grateful to the SAC for this funding and it will certainly be put to good use for the benefit of our community.

29th March 2009

The band performed a 30 minute concert in the foyer of the Royal Concert Hall before East Renfrewshire's Celebration of the Arts concert. There were a few nervous faces before we began but these soon disappeared when we started playing. The band played really well and received a lot of praise afterwards. Everyone contributed a lot to the performance but special praise goes to our new members for performing so well in their first outing on such a big occasion.

26th March 2009

We have been very busy rehearsing with the 'new' band. The beginners who started in January have now settled in and have become a great asset to Levern Valley Community Brass. This evening Provost Alex Mackie and Councillor Douglas Yates came along to our rehearsal. They were not alone! They brought with them 50 polo shirts donated by East Renfrewshire Council which they presented to band members. The shirts incorporate the council logo as well as our own brand new logo. This was a timely presentation as the Band are taking part in the council's 'Celebration of the Arts' in Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall next week-end.

8th January 2009

Happy New Year everyone!

The first rehearsal of the new year was eagerly anticipated as it was the first rehearsal for this session's beginners all 32 of them! We had a great rehearsal and the new members fitted in really well. Hopefully the majority of them will continue to play as the session continues and that the band can progress to Gold Awards.

12th December 2008

The band played at a Civic Reception in Carlibar Primary. This was for the Barrhead Burgh Band reaching their 100th anniversary as a Burgh Band. We gave a short performance after which the Provost said he would find money for 12 Tubas @ £4500 each!

30th November 2009

Another early start for our trip to Perth for the Scottish Youth Championships. Barrhead can be very cold at 8am in November. At least the bus will be warm...

We arrived in Perth in plenty of time to warm up - instruments and players! The Perth Concert Hall is massive and it's easily the largest venue the band has performed in. We played a mixture of new and old music and even the adjudicators applauded at the end. One of our new pieces was a Tuba solo and Gemma was brilliant. She was not overawed by the occasion or the venue. Well done Gemma.

When the results were announced we were given a Silver Award which was well deserved after all the hard work that went into our performance.

5th November 2008

Last week's concert in Eastwood Theatre was a great success. The Barrhead Burgh Band's idea of a round the world theme was quite different with visual presentations of the various destinations being an integral part of the concert. Our contribution took the form of a mini cruise theme and we played Sailing and Cool Calypso with the Caribbean as our final destination. Unfortunately the visual presentation showed a rather dodgy looking ship's captain!

20th October 2008

Rehearsals are now well under way for our biggest concert so far. We will be performing in a concert to be given by Barrhead Burgh Band in Eastwood Theatre, Giffnock on 30th October. The concert's theme is a a trip around the world. Boarding Passes will be issued in place of tickets and prizes will be given relevant to the country we arrive in. The major prize is a holiday for two donated by Barrhead Travel.

30th August 2008

The big day arrived and we set off at 7.30am from Barrhead to play in our first competition at Brass In The Park in Newtongrange. We arrived in plenty of time to listen to some of the other bands who were also playing in the Novice section.

Levern Valley Community Band played 7th out of 8 bands and when we finished our performance we all agreed that we had played very well in our first competition. We had a long wait for the results but they were worth waiting for. We were given a Silver Award and we all received medals. The adjudicator's remarks were very helpful and hopefully we will improve as a result.

16th August 2008

This morning we had our first rehearsal after the summer. Well almost... school starts on Monday. We had a good rehearsal for almost 2 hours. There were a few tired lips at the end but we are all looking forward to our first ever competition at Brass In The Park on the 30th August.

19th June 2008

This evening we went to the bowling at Xscape. Everyone had the chance to let their hair down except Mr Deans - you need hair! Unsure about who the eventual winners were but an unbiased guess would have to be the Trombone section.

13th June 2008

Our 1st Annual Concert was held in Bourock Church, Barrhead. The band were in magnificent form as they performed a varied programme of music to a capacity audience. Many compliments were paid to the quality of playing and also to the band's deportment. Local councillor Danny Devlin presented the annual awards to Gemma Carse (Musician of the Year), Christopher Patrick (Most Promising Player) and Johnathan Boyd (Most Improved Player). Committee members worked extremely hard in the build up to the Concert securing a large amount of sponsorship and donations from local businesses. This work in addition to the band's performance meant that we had a very successful evening.

2nd June 2008

As part of Brass Band week Barrhead Burgh Band held an open rehearsal and invited members of LVCB along to join in. Those members taking part in the rehearsal really enjoyed the experience of sitting in with the Burgh band.

8th May 2008

Alan Edmond, SBBA Development Officer, and Brian Deans today visited three local primary schools. The purpose of the visits was to introduce the pupils of St Mark's, St John's and St Thomas' to the great sound of brass instruments. Pupils (and teachers!) took part in the demonstrations and each school had its own X factor competition.

The great thing about this year's visit was that band members who only started in August were able to demonstrate how much progress they had made in a short time. Hopefully the visits will result in lots of new players next session.

4th April 2008

Levern Valley Community Brass are featured in this week's edition of "The British Bandsman". This is a weekly publication with a world-wide circulation that has news and information about brass bands at all levels.

This week there was an article regarding the differing approaches to the formation of Youth bands in Scotland, Wales and England. Scotland would appear to be doing very well thanks to the good work being carried out by Alan Edmond, the SBBA's Development Officer, in partnership with Local Authorities and Brass Bands.

Alan was very helpful when we were forming and recruiting our own band and in the article he has highlighted Levern Valley Community Brass as one of Scotland's success stories.

27th March 2008

Levern Valley Community Brass performed in the East Renfrewshire Instrumental Music Service annual concerts on the 27th March in Newton Mearns Baptist Church. This was the bands first public performance and it played extremely well in front of a large and enthusiastic audience.

Many positive comments regarding the band were received by MD, Brian Deans and Instrumental Music Service manager, Donald Finlayson, both of whom were delighted by the band's first performance in public.

One other person delighted with the progress the band has made in such a short time was Tom Allan, secretary of Barrhead Burgh Band. At the end of the band's performance Tom presented a £500 cheque to the band on behalf of the Scottish Brass Band Association. In addition to this Tom also issued the band with an invitation to its first competition, Brass In The Park 2008 to be held on 30th August in Newtongrange. (see Photo page)

8th March 2008 - Successful Soloist

Congratulations to one of our cornet players, Connor Culley, on gaining a well deserved second place in the Brass Solo Class at the Glasgow Music Festival.

1st February 2008 - Les Neish Workshop

The band were very pleased to have a visit today from Les Neish. Les is steadily building himself a reputation for himself as a very fine exponent of the Tuba. As well as teaching and free-lancing as a Tuba player, Les is also a member of the world famous Fodens brass band, based in the North West of England.

Within a very short time Les built up a great rapport with the band with his relaxed style and superb playing. He covered many important aspects of playing for beginners with lots of fun exercises. Les worked with two Tuba players and one Euphonium player during his visit giving lots of good advice and tips regarding sound and technique. Special mention was made of Gemma Carse a young Tuba player who has only been playing for 4 months.

The youngsters were especially impressed with Les's demonstration of multiphonics and with one of his own compositions involving the removal of all the Tuba's tuning slides. The band's MD would really like to thank Les for that one!!

Levern Valley Community Brass would like to thank Besson and the West of Scotland Brass Band Association for making the visit of Les Neish possible and we are eagerly awaiting more of the same. (see Photo page)