Lourdes Brass has been celebrating the successful defence of their Festival of Brass entertainment title held recently at Queen's University in Belfast.

After winning the Grade 2 competition in 2016 they returned under MD Michael Alcorn to secure the honours once again — this time adding a clean sweep of all the available silverware on offer in the process.

Clean sweep

In addition to securing the title, they also picked up the 'Most Entertaining Band' trophy and 'Best March' (for a rousing rendition of 'The Voice of the Guns' by Kenneth Alford), whilst principal cornet Mark Newman took the well deserved 'Best Soloist' prize for a wonderful rendition of 'My Love is like a Red, Red Rose' — his second in a row himself after claiming the 'Best Soloist' prize at the South of Ireland Band Championships held in Clonakilty earlier this year.

The entertainment set certainly impressed adjudicator Leigh Baker who said that the band performed with, "...so much style and colour from a very young band."

I was especially pleased to see so many of the younger players playing a full part in the performance and it bodes well for the future and importantly for our youth bandMichael Alcorn

Hard work

That certainly pleased Michael Alcorn, as he told 4BR: "I'm delighted to see the band's hard work over the past year being acknowledged with a clean sweep of prizes. The comments from both adjudicators picked up on lots of things that we have worked so hard to develop in recent months."

He added: "I was especially pleased to see so many of the younger players playing a full part in the performance and it bodes well for the future and importantly for our youth band.

Well done to all of the soloists, particularly Mark Newman for what was a beautiful performance."