We have been busy.

Since our last posting in March 2026, the TSB organisation has not stopped still.

The main band have been contesting and given public performances in Towcester and Northampton.

Our Daytime band has also performed in public, while our new Beginner and Development groups have continued their progression and performed at their Graduation ceremony.

This post will expand on the main band activities. There are separate posts for the Daytime band and Graduation ceremony.

On 11th April, we competed in Constest for the first time. 'Constest' is a contest held at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and is made up of approximately 4 bands from each of the different grading sections (Championship, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) playing an own choice test piece. The band played the Area test piece, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, and secured a creditable 11th place.

Our annual Spring concert held on the 25th April, took place in the fabulous St. Lawrence Church in Towcester. This was our MD Ian Knapton's first public concert with the band and he chose an entertaining programme which contained all forms of music from Big Band, Jazz and Classic Brass Band pieces. The appreciative audience also witnessed some superb solo playing. Mark Limbert (Soprano cornet) played Flowerdale, Peter May performed a Euphonium solo called Forever. Bass in the Ballroom was performed by Rhys Johnston-Stoneman on Eb Bass and Matthew Atkinson, our Principal Cornet, payed Stars from Les Miserables.

On 5th May, we travelled to Abington Park in Northampton to perform at their Summer 'Bands in the Park' series of events. Fortunately the rain stayed away and the audience were entertained with a programme of varied brass band repertoire.

At the end of May we made our way up to Saddleworth to take part in the World Famous 'Whit Friday March' contests. These contests take place at many different villages in the Saddlewoth and Tameside area. Each brass band travels to venues of their choice by coach. They then march along the street and then perform a contest march to an adjudicator and an appreciative audience. The contest started at 4pm and went on until Midnight. Due to a record number of bands entering this year (reports of over 120 bands performing) we only managed to play at 5 villages.

Our theme for the Whit Friday contest this year was 'Magic'. We played 'It's a Kind of Magic' (Queen) for the marching and 'The Wizard' as the contest march. Both the players and our supporters really got into the 'spirit' of things by dressing up in appropriate magical costumes.

In June we were thrilled to take part in the annual Towcester 'Midsummer Music' weekend event. As with the last few years, we entertained a large and lively audience at the Towcester Mill Brewery on Saturday afternoon of 20th June. Again, Ian chose a suitably entertaining programme for the afternoon crowd which included solo performances from Peter May (Forever - Euphonium), Samantha Buckland (Skyfall - vocals), Laura and Holly Winspear (I know him so well - Cornet Duet) and Lyn Stoneman (The way we were - Baritone). A special mention must also go to Natasha Jardine, who played her first ever solo with the band - Tash superbly played 'Cry me a river' on her cornet.

Please take a look at our events page to see where we are perfoming next.