The Italian Brass Band, the European Challenge Section champions, has started a crowdfunding appeal to help meet the costs of the band in travelling to Utrecht in May to defend their title.

Cost

The band is thrilled to be able to compete at the contest once more after retaining their Italian National title in Bolzano last November, but the honour of representing their country does come at a significant cost as there is no government help for brass bands at present.

Great honour

Their spokesperson Giovanni Celestino told 4BR: "It is a great honour to perform at the European Championships, and we feel it is very important that we attend to help with our development as a brass band.

We have been very busy with our fund raising and we hope to keep the costs for the players down as much as possible.

We are gaining a bigger profile in Italy because of our success, and we wish to maintain this and to help brass banding grow."

We have been very busy with our fund raising and we hope to keep the costs for the players down as much as possibleGiovanni Celestino

Help

If you wish to help the Italian Brass Band, please go to:
https://www.eppela.com/it/projects?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Road+to+Utrecht

You may need to use the google translation: Click on text below image of the band and follow instructions — UK is Regno Unito