Saturday 23 April 2011
CONGRATULATIONS
The members of Cockerton Band would like to congratulate John and Janice Liversedge on their wedding day!Saturday 19 March 2011
NATIONAL QUALIFICATION FOR SECOND YEAR RUNNING
On Saturday 19th of March, Cockerton Prize Silver Band took part in the annual area grading contest at the Dolphin Centre. The test piece for the contest was Resurgam, by Eric Ball. The band was drawn number 5 and were following Ellington Band, the same draw as last year when the band became champions. For the 2nd copnsecutive time, Cockerton Band qualified for the national finals, which is now being held in Cheltenham. Despite an excellent performance, the band was awarded second position by David Lancaster. However the band was also awarded best Euphonium soloist, for the playing of Brian Wilderoda. The band are anticipating a good weekend at Cheltenham, and hopefully a good result! The results for the rest of the section can be found below, for the information on the rest of the sections can be found on the North East Brass Band Championships Website.2nd Section Results
1- Catterick Brass
2- Cockerton Prize Silver
3- South Milford Brass
4- Houghton Brass
5- Durham Miners' Association
6- N. Water Ellington Colliery
7- Ferryhill Town
8- Billingham Silver
Euphonium Trophy - Cockerton Silver
Bass Trophy - Catterick Brass
Soprano Trophy - Durham Miners' Association
Saturday 20 March 2010
CHAMPIONS AGAIN AFTER GAP OF 23 YEARS
Darlington’s Cockerton Prize Silver Band achieved champion status in the second section at the North of England Regional Championships held at the Dolphin Centre at the weekend. They will now go forward into the national finals which will be held at Harrogate’s International Conference Centre in September.
Band trustee and spokesman, John Steel, said “Although Cockerton have qualified for the national finals before, this is the first time since 1987 that they have qualified as regional champions. The bands that come first and second in each section represent the region at the nationals, On Saturday Catterick Brass, who in band circles had been tipped to win, were runners up to Cockerton who had been predicted to come fifth”
George Nicklin, the band’s conductor and musical director congratulated the band on playing such a challenging piece of modern brass band music. The test piece, Philip Harper’s ‘Kingdom of Dragons’, depicts the industrial heritage and re-geneartion of the Newport area of South Wales and comprises four movements, each vividly descriptive with lots of rich percussion and mechanical effects. He said “This was a beautiful test piece to play with so much colour, texture and variety. We knew we were very well rehearsed and had high hopes of qualifying but to win came as a huge surprise”.
George went on to say that “Adjudicator, Kevin Wadsworth, was particularly effusive in his written comments which we received shortly after the announcement. In my many years of conducting I don’t think I’ve seen such gushing remarks, such as “you could almost taste the music and smell the coal dust”. The percussion was described as ‘excellent’ and overall he described the musicality and interpretation of the piece as good, which makes me, as musical director, feel good.”
Before the results were announced three soloist prizes are awarded for best Euphonium, Soprano Cornet and Bass section. Cockerton took the Bass and Soprano trophies. The Mark Nightingale Memorial Trophy, was presented to the regional finals by Cockerton Band two years ago following the tragic death of Mark, who was the band’s solo soprano cornet.
Somewhat ironically Cockerton’s soprano cornet, because of an injury, was unable to compete this year. Under these circumstances the rules state that the soprano player from the band that played immediately before Cockerton, in this case Northumbrian Water Ellington Colliery, may loan their player, (Laurence Peart). The adjudicator rated Peart’s performance with Cockerton higher than his performance for his own band which led to some serious teasing from his own band afterwards and a rumour that he was banned from the band’s bus home!
Rehearsals for national finals the test piece will begin in the summer, meanwhile the band have a busy spring and summer programme to look forward to.
1st December
The Band launches its latest CD recording " A Cockerton Christmastime". 21 tracks of festive music recorded at The Forum Studios, Darlington. Get yours now - an excellent stocking filler at ONLY £5. ORDER HERE
22nd November 2009
The band were placed third in the first section of North East Area Grading Competition (League)
3rd June 2009 - Cockerton Band Christmas CD
It might be summer, but this week the band are recording their first ever Christmas CD comprising of the bands 'all time Christmas favourites'! The CD will hopefully be on sale very soon... watch this space!
22nd March 2009 - National Brass Band Championship Qualifiers
We all traveled to the Dolphin Centre after many months of practicing “New World Sketches” by Dan Price. We were drawn to play 3rd out of the 6 bands in the Second Section. The band played the piece superbly, but Adjudicator Richard Evans, however, seemed to disagree and placed us 4th. The winning band was Flookburgh from Yorkshire. We were all very disappointed but it didn’t last too long as all had a splendid time in the pub. Fingers crossed for a trip to Harrogate next year!
Christmas 2008
The band was overwhelmed by the scale of people’s generosity over the Christmas period, especially at a time when money is tight. From collections alone, we raised almost £5,000, a significant increase on Christmas 2007. The funds raised will ensure that we will begin 2009 in a strong position to continue its programme of instrument replacement, especially those used by our growing learner band. The learner band made, as always, an excellent performance at the Cockerton Club Christmas concert.
We would like to express sincere gratitude to all of the bucket shakers and those who contributed to our cash collections over the Christmas period.
Happy New Year!
23rd November 2008 - Durham League
It was celebrations all around on the 23rd November at Peterlee when the band came 2nd in the Durham League playing Rhapsody in Brass. The Best Middle Band Trophy once again went to our outstanding horn section, for the second year running! The cup was taken back to Cockerton Club to celebrate in true Cockerton Band style. Visit the Gallery to view photographs of the day, courtesy of our Official Band Photographer Fiona Alton, thanks Fiona!
October 2008 - New Website
The Cockerton Prize Silver Band website has had a facelift, the new address is www.cockerton.org and no longer www.cockertonband.org.uk. The new website will be much easier for the webmaster to keep up to date so keep checking for new information!
Summer 2008
This years summer programme was a busy one. Our programme of music along with some new (and funny!) jokes from the compere went down a treat and the band are looking forward to the Christmas jobs ahead (see engagements page for more details).
30th March 2008
The band will be competing in the National Brass Band Championship Qualifiers at the Dolphin Centre, Darlington. The band has provided a new trophy, to be awarded annually, to the best soprano cornet player in second section. This trophy – ‘The Mark Nightingale Trophy’ has been inaugurated in memory of Mark who died last year. We are delighted to announce that Mark’s brother, John, will be presenting the trophy at the contest.
January 2008 - New Instruments
After a very successful year, we were able to purchase 2 new Bb Tubas. The band would like to thank you all for your ongoing support!
Saturday 17th March - NEBBA Contest 2nd Section
The Band yet again travelled down to the dolphin centre in a cavalcade including a campavane, to give an outstanding performance of Helen Perkin’s “Carnival” under the direction of a Burl-Ives-esque George Nicklin. Expectations were high and the weeks busy practicing schedule paid off, with us winning a well deserved second place and also trophies for Best Euphonium and Best Basses. This means that a trip to Harrogate for the National Finals is now on the cards in September.
The Juniors/Learners practice scheme started on Wednesday Jan the 17th - see the Learners Band page for details.
Christmas 2006
The band has worked extremely hard over the christmas period, with some members attending 9 jobs in 10 days!
Wednesday 13th December 2006 - Christmas Concert
The band played to a very full concert room at Cockerton Club a selection of usual concert pieces with a sprinkling of christmas music. A selection of relatively new pieces were introduced, including Caravan, a big-band style number, Brian Wilderoda gave a magnificent Solo Euphonium performance of Bizets The Flower Song which was deservedly very well appreciated. And, a first for the band, and possibly any band in the county, Yvonne and Steve, two of our highly talented percussionists debuted a Xylophone duet.
Learner Band
Over the last several months the band has recieved an influx of young players the youngest being Andrew who is 9. There are already a few young players in the band and also some older learners, hehe, so a new Learners Band page has been set up. If you are thinking about learning or are interested in having a go then check out this page.
Sunday 10th September 2006 - Hardraw Scar Contest
The band travelled up to Hardraw Scar full of hope and expectation, with Tony Taylor taking us after only 3 rehearsals. Our program was “Fanfare and Flourishes”, “Crimond”, “Blaydon Races”, “When The Stars Began To Fall”, “Valero” and “Castell Coch”. The band played really well in the warm sunshine, and put in a good performance that we were very happy with. Unfortunately Roy Roe didnt think that we were good enough to be awarded a prize, not even a prize for the “only band that didn’t get a prize”, hehe. But it didnt spoil our day and the copious amounts of drink and bad singing on the coach on the way home left us in good spirits.
Sunday 20th August 2006 - Concert at the DLI museum
The band turned up at the museum with an eye on the weather, rain was forecast and the clouds were beginning to gather. Luckily the first half was over before a small shower started. But the second half was cut-short by a sudden downpour just before the third piece, never mind,I am sure that the audience had enjoyed the concert before then.
Saturday 18th March 2006 - NEBBA Contest 2nd Section
The Band yet again travelled all the way to the dolphin centre after a big push with Howard Snell’s “Images of the Millennium”.
December 2005
This saw the band performing at many Xmas related concerts, events and carolling, a very busy time as usual, trying to raise funds to buy some much needed new instruments, and to pay for our new uniforms. Still, we can look forward to doing it all again next year.
Sunday 27th Nov 2005 - DCBBA Contest Section B
We trudged along to Spennymoor, to lay to rest Eric Ball’s “Main Street”.
Sunday 13th Nov 2005
Another chance for the band to show off their marching skills, heading the parade of remembrance, from the Holy Trinity church on Woodlands Road down to the cenotaph., with Steve Goodwin doing the band proud with his last post.
Sunday 6th Nov 2005
A very early Santa and Rudolf and co. were paraded round Darlington centre much to the pleasure of the crowd, and when it did start to “rain dear” the puns came thck and fast.
Sunday 11th Sep 2005
Everyone piled on the bus full of cheer, anticipating a good day out in the sun, fingers crossed. The band played well coming second overall and with Brian Wilderoda winning the Best Soloist prize for playing the Blaydon Races on euphonium. On returning to the club, via a corner shop in Catterick to re-stock on the essentials (mainly lager) the band headed to the Shapla for a curry - it was feared that a well-oiled sop player may not actually make it onto the plane the following day for the bands “lads holiday” to Corfu, but miraculously he was as sober as a judge at the airport. P.S. - the holiday was a great success - staying in Kavos, the busiest and liveliest resort on the island, with 2 of the party being the last “men” standing on the streets at about 5am!!
Saturday 16th July 2005
The band had a busy day with the Abbeyfields Garden Party on the afternoon - followed by a “Surprise” birthday concert for Betty Cox, Linda Steel’s mother - which went down very well - after which the bands drinking animals made it to Atlantic til’ the early hours - well deservedly. Many thanks to Ian Langthorne from Peterlee, and Andy Rolfe for helping out on principal cornet. P.S. - the bands mascot “Rosie” was won in the “guess the name of the monkey competition” at the garden party.
Wednesday 25th May 2005 - Cockerton Methodists Church Concert The concert went down well, without any fatalities due to people falling off the stage.
Sunday 15th May 2005 - Whitehaven Contest
A selection of the finest players from the band were hand picked to help Peterlee band at the Whitehaven Contest, which with our help they won, result!
Sunday 5th February 2005 - NEBBA Contest 2nd Section
The Band travelled all the way to the Dolphin centre after months of hard work practising “Variations For Brass Band”. We were all sick of the sight of it and would be glad to get it out of the way. We were drawn to play 6th and waited until about 3 o’clock before playing. We played the piece well and awaited the results - which were far from pleasing , we came a very poor 5th out of 7. We were shocked and very disappointed, so went swiftly to the bar to drown our sorrows and then went on to the Indian. Never mind there’s always next year!!
Christmas 2004
The band had a very busy November and December, with the players going all out doing carolling and a long list of Christmas concerts in and around the Darlington area to raise funds for the band. An hour long concert held on Christmas Eve at 22’s raised about £250, which the band donated to the Tsunami appeal.
Sunday 12th of September 2004 - Hardraw Scar Contest
The Band travelled up to Hardraw Scar to take part in the contest for the second year running. The program we had chosen was ‘Les Miserables’, ‘Getting Sentimental’, ‘Eventide’, ‘Victors Return’ and ‘Night Beat’. We played third, and gave a good performance, with Dickies trombone solo going down very well, he played it beautifully, and the cornets standing-up obviously adding to the professionalism of the performance. The contest was held in the marquee, as the weather was wet n windy, which did spoil the day a little, so alot of us had to stay in the pub on the afternoon, to avoid the cold of course. We only came away with one trophy, which was for ‘Best 2nd Section Band’, and I think we were all a little disappointed, but we only really had two practices on the chosen programme, so we didn’t do bad considering.
Latest News
Last updated: 2/5/2011
Cockerton Prize Silver Band
