Downton Band's recently launched Beginners Brass group has been given a boost by the award of over £3,000 from the Ernest Cook Trust.

The Downton organisation has just celebrated 140 years of music making, and also runs a successful training band made up of young and old people keen to learn brass and percussion instruments. The new Beginners Brass group was set up to encourage even more people to learn, and has already been a great success.

Learn to play

Downton's MD Paul Williams, told 4BR: "Beginners Brass is open to anyone who wishes to come along and learn how to play an instrument. We have deliberately tried to make it as cheap as possible to learn with us as music tuition and instruments can be very expensive.

For just £1 a week you'll get expert tuition, a weekly rehearsal, plenty of performance opportunities and the loan of an instrument to take home to practice."

The band has been very fortunate and delighted to be supported by the Ernest Cook Trust and this will enable the band to buy more instruments so that more people can have the opportunity to learn an instrumentMD, Paul Williams

Fortunate

He added: "The band has been very fortunate and delighted to be supported by the Ernest Cook Trust and this will enable the band to buy more instruments so that more people can have the opportunity to learn an instrument."