While composers of recent music for brass band have typically obtained brass band expertise, there are additionally intriguing examples of composers from exterior the brass banding world taking the plunge with outstanding outcomes. A collaboration between 5 British championship brass bands and BBC Radio 3 is aiming to increase this by commissioning new music from set up composers who haven’t but written for brass band, inviting them to put in writing a brand new work which inserts the exact format required for nationwide and worldwide championship competitions and thus guaranteeing a minimal of 5 performances.
This progressive undertaking is spearheaded by the Cooperation Band, Cory, Flowers, Foden’s and Tredegar City Band alongside conductor Martyn Brabbins who realized to play the euphonium throughout his youth at Towcester Brass Band. The primary composer is Richard Blackford, whose new work for brass band Orbital is premiered on the Worldwide Brass Band Competition on the Royal Northern Faculty of Music by the Cory Band, conductor Philip Harper on 25 January 2026 with a broadcast in February and additional performances all through the UK throughout 2026.
The Competition runs from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 January 2026 and is certainly price exploring: there are premieres of works by Claire Cope, Phil Lawrence, Bruce Broughton, Jacob Vilhelm Larsen, Simon Dobson, Helena Zyskowska, and Dorothy Gates together with works by established composers akin to Paul Mealor, Per Nørgård, Derek Bourgeois, Thea Musgrave, Errollyn Wallen, George Lloyd.
Orbital relies on Samantha Harvey’s 2024 Booker Prize successful novel which follows six astronauts aboard the Worldwide Area Station as they orbit Earth, reflecting on topics together with the existence or nature of God, the which means of life, and existential threats akin to local weather change. Blackford describes his new piece as “virtuosic, stuffed with drama and contrasts and, I hope – good tunes.“
Philip Harper, talking on behalf of the 5 championship bands commented: “We’re delighted to be engaged on this undertaking collectively. At a number of moments throughout brass band repertoire historical past, new voices have emerged which injected vitality, innovation and new methods of considering into our music. Composers akin to Gilbert Vinter, John McCabe and Philip Wilby had been all well-established earlier than they wrote for brass band later of their careers, with such big and long-lasting affect“.
Full particulars from the RNCM’s web site.
