Introduction

The Lions Youth Brass are a quite unique organisation which are essentially self running and governing and yet continue to grow year on year. Financial support is provided partly through sponsorship from the Lions Clubs of 105BS but also through many fund raising activities carried out by the bands and their supporters.

The are currently 3 bands; The Lions Beginner Brass, who accept complete beginners, give them an instrument and teach them all of the basic aspects of playing and perform together several times a year. The Lions Junior Brass then aim to take the beginner players and mould them into higher level players performing in concerts and competitions throughout the year. The Lions Youth Brass are the pinicle and compete against other Youth Bands on a national level as well as performing at a wide variety of concert venues and touring every summer.

Membership is currently around 100 players, split accross the 3 bands and is continuing to grow.

Join Us

New members are always welcome, no matter what age or ability!

The instruments our bands cater for can be seen on the instruments page where you will find some handy video clips showing off each instruments features.

It is also possible to join at Junior and Youth level, see the Contact page if they wish to speak to somebody about this.

A Brief History of Lions Youth Brass

The Lions Youth Brass Band was formed in 1989 as the Crewe & District Brass Band, by a group of parents whose children played brass band instruments. At the beginning of the year there were 29 players in the Youth Band and 18 in the training band. After the first year the membership increased and the organisation began to receive financial support from the local Lions clubs of South Cheshire and North Staffordshire. The band changed its name to Lions Youth Brass, and is believed to be the only organisation of its kind in the world to operate in the name of Lions Youth Brass.

The grandmother of a band member volunteered to make red banners for the music stands and committee members carefully stitched on the Lions badges. These must be some of the most travelled Lions badges around!!

The band entered its first contest The Action Research Entertainment Contest 1989, Spurley Hey Manchester.

Key Dates in our History

1990

Ron Yarwood was appointed Musical Director of the Youth Band
Lions Junior Brass formed and directed by Nigel Birch.
Lions Beginner Band formed and directed by Derek Gardener.

1991

Nigel Birch appointed Musical Director of Youth Band
Junior Band directed by Kevin Birch.

1994

Appeared on GMTV

1995

Junior Band directed by Kevin Mowbray.
Played for the Queen and obtained Lottery Grant for £25,000 to buy instruments

1996

Shaun Roache appointed Musical Director of the Youth Band

1997

Paul Andrews appointed Musical Director of the Youth Band
Rachel Woollam appointed Musical Director for the Youth Band
Derek Gardener appointed Musical Director for the Junior Band
Vicky Gardener appointed Musical Director for the Beginner Band

1999

Dave Woollam appointed Musical Director of the Youth Band

2001

Nigel Birch re-appointed Musical Director of the Youth Band
Stewart Thompson appointed Musical Director of the Junior Band
Derek Gardener Musical Co-ordinator of Beginner and Junior Bands

2003

Ian Raisbeck appointed Composer In Residence

2004

Youth Band undertake first foreign Tour to take part in Cheb international Youth Music festival, Czech Republic.

2005

Vicky Gardener appointed as Musical Director of the Junior Band.
Andrew Felton, Hayley Scott and Chris Thompson were appointed Musical Directors for the Beginner Band.

2005

Katie Smallwood appointed as Junior Band Musical Director.

2007

Sarah Raisbeck appointed as Junior Band Musical Director.
David Thornton appointed Associate Musician.

2009

Ian Raisbeck appointed Musical Director of Junior Band.

Honours and Achievments

National Youth Championships: Winners 1994, Winners 1995, 3rd place 2002, 3rd place 2004, 2nd place 2005, 3rd place 2009

Newcastle Music Festival:

Overall Winners: 1991, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2005
Youth Band Winners: 1991, 1992, 1993, 2002, 2004
Junior Band Winners: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Quartet Winners: 1992, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008
Plus many individual results including Neil Raisbeck winning ‘The Most Promising Player‘ four times; three times in a row 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008; Rory Rolfe winning in 2007 and Catherine Flanders winning in 2010.

North Wales Entertainment Championship Youth Section 3: 1991

North Wales Rally Hymn Tune Winners: 1991, 1992, Youth Champions: 1992, 1994

Bangor Contest Quartet Winners: 1992

NW Area Youth Champions Qualified for National Championship: 1992

North Wales Champions Youth: 1993

Manchester and District Youth Champions: 1993, 1999, 3rd place 2001

Rhyl Festival of Brass: 1st place 2002, 2nd place 2003, 1st place 2004. Ian Raisbeck won best soloist on Cornet in 2002, Greg Holsgrove won best soloist on Trombone 2004

Huddersfield Youth in Brass Festival: 1st place 2005, 2nd place 2006. Sarah Raisbeck won best soloist on Cornet 2005

Torquay Brass Festival: 3rd place 2005, Junior Section 1st place 2006

Tameside Youth Festival: 1st place 2006, Alex Holsgrove won best Soloist

Gwent Music Festival: 1st place 2008, Alex Holsgrove won Best Soloist, 2nd place in 2009

Butlins Mineworkers Festival Youth Section: 2nd Place 2010

Throughout the Bands history many members have qualified to play in:

Cheshire County Youth Brass Band
National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain
National Childrens Brass Band of Great Britain

In addition to this many Lions Youth Brass members have gone on to play with world famous Brass Bands such as:

Black Dyke Band, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Fodens Band, Fairey Band, Leyland Band, Wingates Band and over the years Lions has always had a close relationship with the Roberts Bakery Band with many current and former Lions players performing with Roberts

Recordings

The band has made a number of recordings over the years. The band featured on a cassette Tape “Christmas in Sandbach” 1990 and has published the following recordings in their own right:

Pride of the Lions I 1994, cassette tape
Pride of the Lions II 1996, cassette tape
Sounds of Youth 2003, CD
True & Trusty 2005, CD
Loyal and True 2006, CD
Entertain You 2008, CD

Tours

The Lions Band tour is a tradition that has taken place every year since 1992. Typically the band travels away in England for a week of concerts arranged by the local Lions clubs in the chosen area. The band typically takes over a hall or school and eats, sleeps and play together in between concerts. The tour is a great team building exercise and nobody forgets their Lions tour. The tour always ends with a concert back home in South Cheshire and is always well attended and a highlight event of the year. The band has visited:

1992: Frimley, Bradhurst, Hastings, Eastbourne.
1993: Frimley Worthing, Littlehampton, Lyminton, Weymouth, Telford.
1994: May Bank Holiday; Eastbourne. Hastings, Bridport, Weymouth, Lymington, Lichfield.
1995: Clevedon, Weston-Super-Mare, Sidmouth, Brixham, Lymington, Alsager.
1996: Clevedon, Sidmouth, Plymouth, Bude, South Moulton.
1997: Plymouth, Sidmouth, South Moulton, Clevedon, Romiley.
1998: Devon and The Isle of Wight.
1999: Devon Coast
2000: Norfolk
2001: Tour of South Wales
2002: Tour of South Wales
2003: Torquay
2004: Cheb in the Czech Republic - to take part in The International Youth Festival For Music. The band was the only UK band to take part along with 25 other bands from all over the world.
2005: Eastbourne
2006: Minehead
2007: Torquay & Minehead
2008: Costa Blanca, South East Spain
2009: Costa Blanca, South East Spain

The Social Side

Lions Youth Brass is so much more than a Brass Band. Friendships have been made will last forever (there are now at least 3 married couples who met at LYB!). The following video gives you an indication of the fun band members have together...

Website

Lionsyouthbrass.co.uk was created by Chris Thompson (former player and now musical director with the beginners band) and since 2002 has been run by Ian Raisbeck (former player and now composer in residence). In 2008 the Website recieved a full re-design from scratch.

The website fully documents all of the goings on at Lions Youth Brass including: all recent tours, competitions and concerts and is constantly updated.

Back to the Top