First of all, Stourport Brass Band would like to wish you all a very happy new year! It has been a while since we?ve updated, but that is thankfully down to us being very, very busy!

Before I tell you all about our festive adventures, we have some good news to share. In our last blog post, we told you about our upcoming appearance at the Gloucestershire Brass Band Association contest in Ross-on-Wye. Well, we are pleased to announce that we came home with a trophy! We were awarded the trophy for the highest placed 3^rd section band in the contest. It was a very proud moment for all of us and capped off what had been a really fun day. Here are a few pictures of us from that memorable day.

The Christmas period is usually a brass band?s busiest time of year and this year was no exception!? We got to play in a variety of different settings to a number of different audiences, all of which we loved.

The Avoncroft Christmas Fayre was one of our first engagements and was a really nice job for us to do. Playing carols in an intimately-lit barn was a lovely way to kick off Christmas for the band.

One of the highlights of the Christmas calendar came on the 13^th December, when we got to play at Stourport Civic Centre in a joint concert with Stourport Choral Society and Lickhill Primary School. It was a brilliant evening and it was a pleasure to share the stage with such talented performers. We would love to work with these two groups again this year and show off the talent Stourport has to offer.

The next night saw us in Tettenhall, near Wolverhampton for a concert that has become a tradition for the band. Christ Church is a beautiful building with a great acoustic and as always, we really enjoyed playing there.

Christmas saw our usual appearances at Kidderminster supermarkets and we hope that we managed to entertain the shoppers of Morrisons, Sainsburys and Tescos on those cold, hectic evenings!

Stourport Brass Band?s festive season was opened and brought to a close at Severn Valley Railway, entertaining the families as they waited to see Santa. We love playing at SVR every year and seeing all the children singing along with us makes all the hard work seem worthwhile.

2013 was a very hectic year for Stourport Brass Band. We went through a lot of changes and at times, things looked a little bit bleak for the band. But as usual, we rallied together and came back stronger than ever and that is down to the wonderful spirit within the group. We would like to thank everyone for supporting us and coming to see us ? we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

We have lots of exciting things coming up for the band and all the hard work begins at our first rehearsal this Tuesday (7^th January). Hopefully we shall see some of you for some more musical adventures.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Oliver Wilson as Musical Director. Oli is a very talented and enthusiastic conductor. He conducts the National Methodist Youth Brass Band as well as playing solo baritone with The Langley Band. The band is looking forward to working with him.

Oli?s first appearance with the band will be on 22^nd June at Brinton Park for the Kidderminster Carnival.

Many thanks to all the local shoppers who kindly donated money in response to our carol playing performances in December. We raised the following amounts;

The Midcounties Co-operative Community Fund awards the band a grant for new chairs and ties, June 2012

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The band entertains the crowds at the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations at Brinton Park, Kidderminster, Monday 4 June 2012.

The Band rehearses once a week at 7.45-9.45 on a Tuesday evening at The Old School, Abberley Avenue, Areley Kings, Stourport, DY13 0LH. Click here for a map.

The band is graded Third section nationally for 2013 and in the past few years the band have qualified for and represented the Midlands at the National Finals in Dundee & Harrogate for the Second Section.

The band has a very friendly atmosphere and welcome any players of a good standard. We are a social bunch and have social events such as curry nights and BBQs as well as entertaining our concert go-ers!. If you would like to know more about the band or would like to book the band then please contact our secretary on secretary@stourportband.co.uk.