On Saturday night, members of the Rode Hall Silver Band gathered for a slightly belated celebration of the 23/24 contest and concert season and to recognise some outstanding individual contributions from our band members.
Award
Award Winner
Rising Star
Seren Bates
Most Improved Player
Phoebe Wright
Pierpoint Trophy (Best Soloist)
Brian Rogers
Band Managers Award
Ed Gillespie
Graham Tilley Trophy (Bandperson Of The Year)
Dave Giannasi
Long Service Award
Joseph Whitehurst (5 Years) Phoebe Wright ( Years)
Rode Hall Silver Band is pleased to announce that, after a series of successful rehearsals and a great concert performance, we have appointed Ken Mackintosh as our new Musical Director.
Given the alignment between his vision and the band's aspirations, the band has decided to conclude the application process early and will not be accepting any further applications. The band would like to thank all those who expressed interest in the position.
We are excited to begin this new chapter under Ken’s leadership and look forward to continuing our journey of musical presentation and development.
For more information and updates on our upcoming events, please continue to visit our website.
The band will be striking up the music with patriotic and foot-tapping tunes of the period when they commemorate the D-Day landings on Thursday, June 6 in Congleton.
The award-winning band is marking the 80th anniversary of the day Allied forces swarmed over the Normandy beaches to begin the liberation of Europe after four years of war with Germany.
But the sound will be all that much sweeter if they can attract new players to the band - principally basses and trombones for the evening concert at the New Life Church.
The concert will be accompanied by video and photographs of the historic day screened behind the band with readings between the pieces of music.
"It will be will be great event for people to come along and will contain a lot of topical music to mark the anniversary," said a spokesperson for the band.
"We will be creating a street party family mood and asking people to bring along their drinks, food and flags to celebrate one of the most momentous days in history.
"We need new players and this will allow any potential recruits to visit us on the night and see the band in action."
The £10 tickets for the event are available from Congleton Information Centre, band members and from email bandmanager@rodehallband.org.uk
This year's awards evening was held on Saturday 22nd April along with a party buffet and quiz.
The Rode Hall Silver Band celebrated a number of major milestones, handing out our newly pressed Long Service badges issued to 5, 10, 20 and 30 year service players. The commitment individuals have shown to this band is outstanding and worthy of celebration, particularly our Chair, Victoria Sherwood, who has played for the band for 34 years and our Band Manager, Steve Twemlow, who has played non-stop for an incredible 42 years and received the great honour of becoming a 'Lifetime Member'! Thanks to all those who have committed so much time and effort to keep this band alive for over 186 years.
Here are a few photographs from the evening
Our new badges celebrating 5, 10, 20 and 30 years of service
Best Soloist was awarded jointly to our percussion team - Kat Slater and Ed Gillespie, presented by Musical Director, Nigel Butler
Joseph Whitehurst was the very worthy recipient of our 'Most Improved Player' Our Chairman, Vicky Sherwood, received the first ever badge recognising over 30 years playing in the band!
Other awards went to Dave Giannasi - band person of the year (including the Graham Tilley Cup); Thomas Conibere - best newcomer; Liam Mosedale - junior most improved player; Brian Rogers - band manager’s award
Long service awards were presented as follows:
5 years service - Donna Bates, Simon Greasby, Stephen Holdcroft, Sue Howell, Cari Latham, Steve Moore Steve Neville, Katharine Slater, Mike Walker and Emma Wild.
10 years service - Nick Brown, Nigel Butler, Charlotte Danford, Dave Giannasi, Mike McCann, Anna Whitehurst, Michael Whitehurst and Nick Wright
A very special 'Lifetime Member' award was presented to Steve Twemlow for 40 years service! Pictured here with Vicky Sherwood and Dave Giannasi
Rode Hall Silver Band were delighted once again to be invited to play the Congleton Rotary Last Night of the Proms Concert on Saturday 17th September. The excellent Sarah Anne Francis also performed some great solo numbers and also accompanied us for Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Brittania and God Save the King.
The planned programme was preceded by a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, led by Steve Hodgkinson, followed by the band, Sarah Francis and the audience joining together in a rendition of 'God Save the King'.
Rode Hall Silver Band took to the road on Friday 10th June 2022, heading for the fantastic and traditional Whit Friday Marching contests held around Thameside, Oldham and Saddleworth.
Whit Friday meaning White Friday is the name given to the first Friday after Pentecost or Whitsun. The day has a cultural significance in the North West as the day on which the annual Whit Walks are held.
The brass band contest has been held since 1870: and attracts all the big name bands as well as bands from far and wide, young and old.
Each location organises its own contest and it is up to each band to navigate to as many venues as possible. This tests the skills of the coach drivers to their limits as the pressure builds to get to the next one as fast as you can.
When you arrive out jumps a runner to register your entry and then you join the queue to march up the road literally packed with spectators. The band then forms up on a stage, a field a pub car park or wherever the contest is to be held and upon the adjudicators whistle you commence your performance of your chosen piece. When you finish its back onto the bus and off to the next one.
Our first stop was Scouthead. Our musical director and big bass drummer Nigel Butler had chosen True and Trusty to march up to and the tricky and testing ‘Mephistopheles’ by Shipley Douglas as our contest march. It was straight into action and the crowd gave us a warm welcome in the late afternoon sunshine.
Back to the bus and Stephen our fantastic coach driver was ready to whisk us off to Delph, probably one of the favourite locations. The crowd gathers in chairs around a pub forecourt and appear to really know their stuff.
Two down, we scramble back on squeezing onto the coach between drums, basses and trombones. Then as is tradition, we got lost trying to find Dobcross. A few wrong turns, lots of different sat nav opinions and after a few detours, driving back through a bemused crowd at Scouthead we finally arrived at Dobcross. No time to hang around it was straight onto the village green and under the oak tree, surrounded by a great crowd enjoying the warm blustery afternoon sunshine.
RHSB performing at Dobcross
The band were playing well with a great full sound, helped in no small part by the welcome support of some of our friends from the Acceler8 band.
It was now early evening and the crowds had had plenty of time to enjoy the 70 or so bands as they made their way around the contests. They had also had a lot of time to enjoy the beer and wine, as could be seen by the rather leery supporters at Uppermill. We had quite a long wait here, but it gave us time to soak in the carnival atmosphere and look and listen to some other bands and recover our lips ready for the next ones on the list. After a while we played at Uppermill and it was clear that we had done well, you know when its right and it was getting better as the night wore on.
By now it was dark as we made our way to Greenfield, a great venue, under floodlights on an impressive stage. Right in front of us was the Championship band Leyland. Always a bit daunting to follow a top band, but we were not put off and in fact put in our best performance of the night.
Five down, could we get another one in before the events closed down. We managed to sneak into Lydgate as the 2nd to last band to perform there. Brighouse followed us on and closed the night.
We rushed off to see if we could get one more in at Denton. We arrived at 11.15pm only to be told that we had missed final registration but the good news was the bar was still open. A very relieved and tired bunch of players were very thankful to have a celebratory drink after a long hard but thoroughly enjoyable day where everyone had given their very best.
So then the wait for the results to come in:
Rode Hall competes at the 3rd section level so that is who we were in competition with.
We were delighted to hear that we won at Greenfield, we came second at Dobcross and Uppermill and got third at Scouthead. Placed in 4 competitions out of 6 completed, what a night and what a great boost for the band.
Rode Hall Silver Band took part in the NWABBA Buxton Brass Band Festival on the 28th April 2019. The event was an own choice test piece contest and was held in the newly refurbished Octagon Theatre which provided a fantastic acoustic for the event. The order of play for the bands had been pre-drawn and Rode Hall Silver opened proceedings at 10:30am by playing the National Anthem as is traditional at all brass band contests in the UK. The band then went on to play it's chosen test piece for the 4th Section, 'Music for a Festival' by Philip Sparke. Competition from the other bands was strong and adjudicator Mike Kilroy commented on the quality and ambition of all the performances. The band were delighted to be placed 1st overall and also won the prize for the highest placed NWABBA band.
The band returned to the De Montfort School on the 3rd of November after 4th Section success last year. This year the band entered both the 3rd and 4th section competitions and our results are as follows:
