Listen to the Band: 1st August

Grimethorpe Colliery Band is celebrating its centenary this year and with Brassed Off, fantastic contest success plus its work with ground breaking music and conductors, there's a lot to celebrate.

Frank Renton and archivist Tim Mutum enjoy some highlights from one of brass band's greatest stories.

Listen to the Band: 8th August

Derek Bourgeois is one of the music's most respected and popular composers, and a new concerto from him is a real event. He talks to Frank Renton about his new work and the recording by the brilliant Cory star Tom Hutchinson.

Listen to the Band: 15th August

Some fifty years ago with banding concert repertoire consisting of the same old diet of classic arrangements and old fashioned solos, it needed to change.

The advent of the entertainment competition, and particularly the Granada Band of the Year which began in 1971, provided the incentive. Suddenly bands were thrust into the entertainment industry, and needed writers and arrangers who could deliver a new kind of music.

Frank Renton highlights the talents that helped change the band world forever and, in the process, took it to a new audience.

Listen to the Band: 22nd August

Frank Renton has seven recordings which illustrate the art of transcribing music from other genres to the band world.

Music originally written for strings can be notoriously difficult to cope with, as is contemporary choral music — and what about creating a piece of band music from a delicate piece of French piano music?

Here are some of the most successful examples.