The Youth Band

The Youth Band are the last band players in the organization play in before leaving. The age of players in the band ranges from 12 to 19, but all players are of a similar standard. Upon reaching the 'grand old' age of 18, many players leave, mainly due to University, but many try to stay on as long as possible.

The band rehearse at Sandbach Boys School every Tuesday night from 7 o'clock until 9 o'clock.

The band is conducted by Nigel Birch, who is now in his second stint as Musical Director. During his first spell at the helm, he guided the band to consecutive wins in the National Youth Brass band Championships. He has also added a third place to this in 2002.

The band enter many contests, and have won not only the National Finals, but the North West Brass Band Association Contest, Rhyl Festival of Music, and the Newcastle-Under-Lyme Music Festival at varying times in their history. See the About us section for a full list of honours

There have been several recordings produced by the organisation over the past few years, featuring concert pieces, competition pieces and soloists the quality achieved has been outstanding considering the age of the band. The Recordings section of this site contains information on how you can obtain these CD's and Tapes.

You can see the Youth Band perform on the Videos page.

The Junior Band

The Junior Band is made up of players aged between 8 and 15 and who some playing experience but needed developing and moulding to the Youth Band level. Conducted by Ian Raisbeck, the band is intended to bridge the gap between the Beginner and Youth Bands, introducing players to the concepts of playing in a band and performing at concerts and competitions.

The band performs in concerts throughout the year both with the other bands, as well as on it's own. It also takes part in competitions and has been champion of the Newcastle-Under-Lyne festival ensemble class several times in recent years.

The band rehearses on a Tuesday night at Sandbach Boys School between 7pm and 8pm, with occasional longer practices for special events.

The Beginner Band

The Lions Beginner Band is the start of the Lions Youth organisations academy. The team of musical directors, Hayley Scott, Andrew Felton and Chris Thompson (all of whom are former playing members of the organisation), take complete beginners who are not able to read music and help them to develop their playing until they are ready to step up the ladder into the Lions Junior Band.

Players in the band range from the age of 6 to 11 years old and rehearsals are held in a variety of ways, all designed to help each player get the required amount of individual attention. Some weeks see the band have a full practice; other weeks see ‘sectional’ rehearsals; and sometimes the instruments are ‘forgotten’ about for a week and the ‘LBB Music Challenge’ is held, a music quiz which sees the band split into teams, which helps further their knowledge of music theory and also helps the players to bond. Rehearsals are always a great deal of fun with a lot of hard work going in, and no small amount of laughter involved too!

Since Hayley, Andrew and Chris were appointed in 2005 they have introduced various new initiatives to the band on and off the concert stage too. October 2005 saw the band take part in their first ever workshop, with a concert to conclude the days events. This has been repeated every year since and is always something the band enjoy doing,

Rehearsals take place at Sandbach Boys School, on Tuesday nights, from 7pm until 8pm.

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