Good luck to our eight bands heading to York this weekend

Best wishes and good luck to our Scottish representatives in this weekend’s National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.

A total of eight bands will be heading beyond Hadrian’s Wall to compete against their UK counterparts in Sections 1-4 in the York Barbican.

On Saturday, the Second Section will be the first of the four contests in which Campbeltown Brass and Johnstone will compete against 17 rivals, performing Song of Courage (Eric Ball) to be judged by Robert Childs, Stephen Cobb and Sheona Wade.

Later that day, Kirkintilloch Kelvin and Lochgelly will be joining 16 other bands in the First Section to play Beyond the Falls – The Smoke That Thunders by Andrew Wainwright for the adjudication of David Hirst, David Thornton and Mark Wilkinson.

On Sunday, the Fourth Section contest will include Bon-Accord B and Coalburn Intermediate challenging 14 other bands with their performances of the test piece Heroes of the North by Peter Graham, which will be adjudicated by Stephanie Binns, Nicholas Garman and Stephen Pritchard.

Bringing the weekend to a close, Selkirk Silver and St David’s Brass will be up against 18 other bands in the Third Section, playing Thierry Deleruyelle’s Snow Island for adjudicators Brett Baker, Alan Bourne and Andrea Price.

The full line-ups are:

Saturday – Second Section

Abertillery Town (Lee Blankley)

Bollington Brass (Craig Mann)

Campbeltown Brass (Owen Pickering)

Ellington Colliery (Clare Winter)

Felling (Stephen Malcolm)

Harborough (Ben Smith)

Hatfield and Askern Colliery (Richard Marshall)

Jersey Premier Brass (Jason Mildren)

Johnstone Band (Raymond Tennant)

Kippax (James Beecham)

Lanner and District Silver (Stuart Chappell)

Leicestershire Coop (Ben Hewlett-Davies)

Lewes Brass (Nathaniel Roff)

Lostock Hall Memorial (Joseph Murtagh)

Markham and District (Gary Davies)

Staines Brass (Gareth Trott)

Uppermill (James Garlick)

Verwood Town (Kevin Smith)

Wotton-under-Edge and District (Jim Bennett)

Saturday – First Section

Blackburn and Darwen (Daniel Thomas)

Bournemouth Concert Brass (Lloyd Bartlett)

Durham Miners Association (Stuart Gray)

East of England Coop (Mark Ager)

Fulham (Alan Thomas)

Hucknall and Linby MC (Chris Ledger-Knapp)

Kirkintilloch Kelvin (Mareika Gray)

Lochgelly (Chris Shanks)

Lympstone (Chris Spreadbury)

Marsden Silver (Ben Dixon)

Parc and Dare (Dewi Griffiths)

Raunds Temperance (Jonathan Pippen)

Roche Brass (Matt Green)

Rushden Town (Adele Hudson)

South Yorkshire Police (Leigh Baker)

Tyldesley (Neil Samuel)

York Railway Institute (David Lancaster)

Sunday – Fourth Section

Bon-Accord B (Harry Marshall)

Brighton and Hove City (Rom Stanko)

Brindle (Steve Hartley)

City of Oxford (Douglas Brown)

Coalburn Intermediate (Gareth Bowman)

Crystal Palace (Jim Lynch)

Cubbington Silver (Mark Scott)

Driffield Silver (Peter Kench)

Garforth Brass (Gordon Eddison)

Gwaun-cae-Gurwen (Alex Parker)

Matlock (Christopher Banks)

Pendennis Brass (Harry Weir)

Queensbury Music Centre (Alan Hobbins)

Shaftesbury Town Silver (Martin Hill)

Swinton and District Excelsior (Stephen Hague)

Wardle Community (Jane Conway)

Sunday – Third Section

Allerton Brass (Jamie Duncan)

Avonbank [Evesham] (Micah Dominic Parsons)

Barton Community (Garry Oglesby)

Betteshanger Colliery (Michael West)

Bream Silver (Hugh Bamford)

City of Cardiff [Melingriffith] 2 (John Murray)

Clock Face Miners Heritage (Will Haw)

Cwmtawe (Wayne Pedrick)

Drighlington (TBA)

East Riding of Yorkshire (Richard Grantham)

Epping Forest (Keith Schroeter)

Littleborough (Max Stannard)

Market Rasen (Peter Richardson)

Selkirk Silver (Stuart Black)

Shirebrook Miners Welfare (Christopher Banks)

St David’s Brass (John Dickson)

St Pinnock (Helen Varley)

Swindon Brass (Stephen Yorke)

Tadley Concert Brass (Paul Chapman)

Wetherby and District Silver (Craig Ratcliffe)