What a day last Saturday turned out to be for the Lourdes Brass Band as they competed in the Queen’s University Festival of Brass and took home all the silverware on offer.

In addition to winning First Prize, the Band were also awarded the prizes for “Most Entertaining Band”, “Best March” for their performance of ‘The Voice of the Guns’ by Kenneth Alford, while the Band’s principal cornet player Mark Newman also scooped the prize for “Best Soloist”. This is a great achievement for Mark as he was also awarded best soloist prize at the South of Ireland Band Championships held in Clonakilty earlier this year.

The adjudicator at the championships, Mr Leigh Baker, former Composer in Residence with the world famous “Brighouse and Rastrick Band”, was particularly impressed with the age profile of the band commenting that the band played with “so much style and colour from a very young band”.

The Band’s Musical Director added, "I am delighted to see the band’s hard work over the past year being acknowledged at the weekend 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. I was especially pleased to see so many of the younger players in the band playing a full part in the performance on Saturday and it bodes well for the future of the band and importantly, the youth band. Well done to all of the soloists on Saturday, particuarly Mark Newman for a beautiful performance of Gordon Langford’s “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose”.

The band would like to thank Professor Michael Alcorn for all his hard work and dedication to the Band. There truly isn’t a harder working man in banding.

The next outing for the band is our Christmas Concert which is held on Thursday 14th December in the Droichead Arts Centre, tickets are available from the bandroom on Bachelors Lane and the Droichead Arts Centre box office.