Macclesfield Youth Band Wins Top Prize On A Global Stage

Macclesfield Youth Brass Band has won the prize for ‘Best Presentation’ out of 119 bands in last week’s online Whit Friday competition organised by Fodens Band.

The competition attracted entries from bands worldwide including the USA, Australia, Uganda, Singapore as well as across Europe and the UK including the world’s leading brass band, The Cory Band from Wales.

Macclesfield Youth Band’s entry paid homage to the Whit Friday Marches as seen in the film Brassed Off. Their witty remake of the film was shot in and around Macclesfield during lockdown and band members recorded their individual performances of the March of the Cobblers in their own homes to be subsequently edited together to create a virtual band.

The creative idea was a hit with the adjudicator who appreciated the efforts of the band members and also the technical input from the youth band’s drummer, Dom Ritchie (sound editor) and his dad Andy Ritchie, from Tyrz, (video editor) who are a business sponsor of the youth band.

Musical Director Louise Renshaw was delighted with the result.

“This is an amazing result for MYBB. All the bands worked really hard to submit entries that were both musically and visually impressive. We set out to make our entry fun and entertaining but never expected to win. We wanted to showcase our town in front of a worldwide audience, capture the essence of our youth band and demonstrate how we have adapted to keep music alive during the pandemic.”

“Huge thanks to the team at Fodens Band who organised the event which was broadcast over two evenings via their YouTube channel.

Prizes were also awarded to the top 3 musical performances in each of 7 sections. Macclesfield Youth came 6th out of 17 bands in the youth section in addition to taking the overall award for Best Presentation for the whole competition.

Macclesfield Youth’s performance is available on their facebook page and Youtube channel:

https://youtu.be/yCLBNVp5IFU

You can watch the entire contest on at:

https://www.youtube.com/fodensband1900