Musique For Concord

Local youth marching music ensemble CONCORD have been specially selected to take part in a national pilot scheme that will form the basis of a UK-wide programme.

Supported by the prestigious National Lottery funding body “Youth Music”, Concord, one of the country’s oldest and widely-renowned youth music organisations, have agreed to work towards increased involvement with the local wider music community. The grant will enable Concord to work with a local professional musician, to provide training for potential future leaders and to present workshops for other local youth groups.

This unique programme involves just four bands from different parts of the country, selected for their outstanding performance record, and Concord is representing the North of England.

Concord Executive Director Roger C Steele says “Our volunteer team of leaders and instructors and our members welcome the challenges involved and are very pleased to have been selected for this pilot programme that could make a vast difference to marching youth music groups across the United Kingdom. We hope that we can introduce many more young people to our unique activity during the course of the next fifteen months”.

The programme is entitled “MUSIQUE” – a fusion of the words “Music” and “Physique” because youth marching music ensembles combine the performance of live music with physical activity. MUSIQUE is managed by the British Federation of Youth Marching Bands Organisations as part of its 2008-2012 development strategy.

CONCORD will be arranging percussion, brass and performance workshops as part of this programme over the next few months for local youth groups, schools and other music and performance groups. We would be interested in hearing from any group who would like us to organise such a workshop session.

For further details of all CONCORD activities please call 0114 249 1460 or email : rcs [at] concord [dot] org [dot] uk.

For details of the national programme please contact Jim Vaughan on 02380 269643, or by email on : marchbands [at] aol [dot] com.