The talented youngsters of Whitworth Vale & Healey Youth Band recently performed at the NWABBA Youth Championships held at Rochdale Town Hall.

The band was led by local lad Aaron Wolfe and is made up of 22 local brass players aged from 9 to 18 and competed against local neighbours Rochdale Borough Youth, Oldham Music Service and others from the North West and Yorkshire.

Fantastic performance

Despite having half the number of players in comparison to others they produced a fantastic performance with a programme of 'Celebrate!', 'Be Still My Soul', 'Deep River' featuring flugel soloist Hollie Lancaster, and 'Petite Suite de Ballet' by Eric Ball.

Awards

At last year's contest the band came away with three awards, a feat they repeated this year.

Lucy Hanson was awarded with the 'Youngest Player' prize (aged 9 years and 363 days!), and the band won the 'Highest Placed NWABBA Band' and most pleasingly the 'Band Showing the Most Potential' awards.

High levels of maturity

Musical Director Aaron Wolfe told 4BR: "I'm so proud of the performance. Hollie played her solo amazingly well and the band played with extremely high levels of maturity considering their age.

Over the few years each player has come on leaps and bounds meaning that I have been able to challenge them with repertoire which would previously have been more suited towards 'senior' bands."

It's fantastic that a village like Whitworth can produce a homegrown youth band of this calibre and I know our band academy will have a bright futureMusical Director Aaron Wolfe

Fantastic

He added: "It's fantastic that a village like Whitworth can produce a homegrown youth band of this calibre and I know our band academy will have a bright future."