The Woodhouse Prize Band has been keeping itself buy during the Coronavirus pandemic — partly reflecting on its proud 167 year old history as a community band situated in the small village on the South East side of Sheffield.
Formed in 1853 the band has never received any form of sponsorship and prides itself on being a family friendly, hardworking, non-contesting band, which in recent years has enjoyed its music making under the batons of David Morris and latterly under Richard Windle.
Lockdown recordings
Richard told 4BR: "When I joined as MD in 2018, I could see that this was a band with the ambition to entertain audiences. Since the Coronavirus pandemic hit the UK we have been working hard to stay as motivated as possible, producing three lockdown recordings — including the old ELO hit 'Mr Blue Sky' and '500' from 'The Proclaimers' both of which proved to be a great hit."
Richard revealed that the latter recording also helped raise funds for local young lad with cerebral palsy who himself was raising over £130,000 for local charities.
Signature march
Now the band has delved into it more recent history to come up with its latest musical production — and the recording of the march 'W.P.B.'.
It was originally written in 1929 by band member Tom Cook and given the name 'Aston Hall', although soon after it was consigned to the dusty shelves of the band library and was only unearthed in the year 2000.
Richard added: "We thought it had been lost forever but now that we have played it again we decided to rename it as our signature march — and we were delighted to play when we took part in the recent Foden's On-line Whit Friday initiative.
It's a great little march and we will be playing in our concerts when we return to action."
Family connection
And with a lovely family connection, Band Secretary Gemma Grayson is the Great, Great Granddaughter of Tom Cook . She told 4BR: "To have the band be seen all over the world was very exciting, but for us to be playing Tom's original composition is something to be extremely proud of!
Woodhouse has had involvement from the Cook family since it was formed, seeing many Cook's become bandmaster over the years. My Grandad, Graham Cook, 84, is still an active, playing member of the band and I know he is overwhelmed with the compliments Tom's march has received."
Enjoy the march:
To enjoy the performance go to:
