Foden’s Band secures major award from Arts Council England

Foden's Brass Band, one of the World's leading Brass Bands from Cheshire have announced that they have been successful in an application to Arts Council England through ‘Grants for the Arts’ for ‘Foden’s next steps project December 2020 to July 2023’.

Grants for the Arts is supported using Public Funding by Arts Council England with the grant over three years being worth £31,500 towards a total project cost of £61,888 

The funding will see the band deliver a number of online events which will include a free 'Winter School,' a virtual concert and a large number of 'karaoke' arrangements for players of different abilities to be accompanied online by Foden's members! A number of anniversaries will be celebrated as well as a female composer competition. Band members will be up skilled to deliver workshops and lessons with hearing impaired youngsters and a number of commissions and valuable resources to benefit the wider banding community will be produced. To help introduce new audiences to banding, Foden's will work with artists from different genres with funding also being used to develop and market existing events by adopting a professional approach to management and audience development. Finally, the organisation will increase their Youth outreach work celebrating 10 years since the formation of the Foden's Youth Band with their Youth and Junior bands now boasting over 100 members.  

Speaking about the funding award Mark Wilkinson commented, 'After an extremely challenging year for all this is fantastic news for Foden's and banding in general. The funding allows Foden's to deliver a wide range of exciting projects to benefit the banding community, minority groups and to support those less abled than ourselves. It also allows us to raise the profile of brass bands in general and to interact with new audiences whilst working with a number of our educational and instrument partners. We are extremely grateful to Arts Council England for supporting our application as well as our vision and artistic plans. I would also like to thank Carole Crompton (a former member of the band and now Vice President) for her expertise and guidance in submitting the funding application.' 

The funding comes on the back of a busy year for the band (despite being in lock down) who have produced 16 virtual band recordings, 6 podcasts as well as a successful online Whit Friday event, Music Festival and Solo Contest with all the various video content being viewed over 750,000 times across the World. 

The bands various online video content can be viewed via Foden's Band - YouTube