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Brass: Durham International Festival
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Durham County is an area with a rich and varied history within which the strong brass-band tradition has played an enduring cultural and socially cohesive role. The population of County Durham is approximately 492 thousand with an estimated 3,000 or more brass players actively involved in music making. Brass music is an integral part of community life in the North East of England and an important facet of the region‘s heritage. Brass: Durham International Festival is a two week celebration of the strong musical and cultural bond between the North-East and the international traditions of brass music. The festival looks beyond the indigenous brass-bands of the region and celebrates the rich diversity of brass instruments. Showcasing the very best of this music’s emerging and established artists it provides an opportunity for musicians from across the continent, young and old, amateur and professional, to meet, collaborate and celebrate. Brass: Durham International Festival is unique, the only festival of its type in the world as it successfully bridges the gap between contemporary music-making and the various traditions of brass band music. Audiences enjoy the varied sounds of this rich, inspiring music that traverses between the traditional to gypsy-punk, techno, funk and jazz. With over 30 events, many of them free, the festival appeals to the widest of audiences - from young brass players, who can be inspired by contemporary approaches to brass music, to more traditional audiences who engage with the heritage of regional brass bands. Many of the participating bands and ensembles also take part in the festival’s workshop programme. This offers indigenous brass bands in County Durham and beyond the opportunity to collaborate with instrumentalists from other traditions and work in new and different situations. The workshop programme provides opportunities for more formal creative collaborations though the festival’s seminar and Musical Exchanges programme organised by Durham University Music School. This develops the cross-cultural dialogues that grow naturally out of the programme. The festival has a history of commissioning new work and facilitating musical collaborations that have brought together artists from different brass traditions. In 1990 the festival created Northern Brass, an ensemble that brought together two outstanding contemporary jazz players with seven of the region’s finest brass band players. The 2008 festival saw the world famous Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band meet up with Bellowhead a young, contemporary English brass-driven folk band. With the support of the festival this partnership developed new work which premiered on stage in 2009. The festival also facilitated dialogue between German ensemble Beat 'n' Blow and the Reg Vardy Brass Band. 2009 also saw the festival commission Forma to create a new collaborative work in sound and film. Forma has been commissioned, as part of the 2010 festival, to produce a new work “The Miner’s Hymn”. A new collaboration between acclaimed Icelandic musician Johann Johannsson and NASUWT Riverside Band which is to be premiered at Durham Cathedral. The festival is characterised by impromptu jamming sessions and provides opportunities for artists to interact. The Streets of Brass days in themselves fill the streets of the City with vibrant, colourful brass ensembles that play music that both entrances the passers-by and provides good-natured spontaneous musical duels. The event echoes the regional celebration of the Miner’s Gala and invites audiences to dance through the streets and celebrate the diversity of all things brass.
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