After conducting Otley Brass for the past five years, Gordon Eddison is stepping down to concentrate on his freelance conducting and teaching career. Gordon will also be devoting more of his time to nurturing Wharfe Brass, the development band of the Otley Band organisation.

Grown

Wharfe Brass has grown over the past three years from a nucleus of nine players to a current strength of fifty-five, with players ranging in age from 9 to very nearly 90!!

Gordon’s last engagement with Otley will be at the Wharfedale Music Festival in the King’s Hall, Ilkley in May. The band also hopes its latest CD recording will be released about that time.

Special band

Gordon told 4BR: "I’ve had so much fun and performed great music with Otley over these last few years. They are a very special band and completely unique.

Where many bands across the country are struggling to attract players, we have a main band of nearly forty with very few empty seats and has a great following that regularly plays to full houses. The band has also enjoyed a great deal of contest success too.”

Develop

He added: "I hope to be able to take up some of the opportunities for freelance conducting that I have had to decline recently. My teaching life is changing too so this move should allow that to develop also."

Look forward

Band Chairman, Stuart Warriner, added: "All the band really wants to thank Gordon for all of his hard work over the last 5 years. His boundless energy and enthusiasm has been inspirational and we share many happy memories of the musical adventures together.

We look forward to continuing to work with Gordon as part of the successful Wharfe Brass initiative which is securing the future of brass playing in the Wharfe valley."