Over 80 young brass players recently gathered at Warwick School for the second Jaguar Land Rover ‘Day of Brass’ in partnership with Warwickshire County Music Service (CMS).

Innovative

The innovative partnership was hailed as a great success, as around 70 per cent of the children had also attended the first event last May and were returning to enjoy yet more high quality tuition and music making in three bands at junior, intermediate and senior level.

The three ensembles rehearsed separately during the day and then came back together mid-afternoon to rehearse ‘The Eye of the Tiger’ from the film ‘Rocky’

Joint item

A spokesperson told 4BR: "It is never easy to find a joint item that can be played by different bands at the same time, with massively different ability levels between the bands – but ‘Rocky’ did the trick and it was really well received by the audience of family and friends!"

County Music Service Manager Jeremy Dibb, who has been a leading advocate for partnership schemes and initiatives to be explored between local authorities and community bands, took his son to the event.

This rather summed up the whole day — highly professional but with a very relaxed approach and lots of good humourCounty Music Service Manager Jeremy Dibb

Highlight

He told 4BR: "My son felt very special as he was the only ‘mini-horn’ player in the junior group.

His highlight was a performance by the Jaguar Land Rover band of ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ in which two of the band members dressed up as Clint Eastwood and a ‘baddy’ for a gun fight with water pistols — happily soaking anyone who was in their way – and playing their instruments at the same time!”

Jeremy concluded: "This rather summed up the whole day — highly professional but with a very relaxed approach and lots of good humour."