Wardle Academy host annual Music for Youth Regional Festival

Nineteen musical groups in total participated in the regional event from as far as Sefton and Formby.

Wardle Academy themselves participated with the Youth Band, Junior Band, Show Band, Wind Band, Choir and Folk Group. Each performed several pieces, including the Youth Band’s ‘Plus Ultra’ by Andrew Stephenson and the Junior Band’s ‘Abba Gold.’

The brass bands were joined by the Choir and Folk Group.

Musical Mentors Keith Hewson and Andy Mellon said that the choir had “lovely unison” and are “good split into harmonies”, whereas the Folk Group had “lovely internal rhythm” and “great syncopation”. The Wind Band performed four pieces and were told by the Mentors that the band “listens and works hard to produce a wonderful sound”.

Janet Emsley, Director of Performing Arts, said: “It was a pleasure to see so many varied musical groups from different areas. We hope they enjoyed our hospitality; we enjoyed all of the performances.”

The second day the Festival was held at the Rochdale Town Hall, where Wardle Academy’s Music Tutors entered a massed band containing over 180 pupils from Smithy Bridge Primary School, Kentmere Academy, St Andrews Primary School, Stansfield Primary School, St James Primary School and Littleborough Community Primary School. They performed under the name of Wardle Junior Blast.

Mrs Jane George, Head teacher of Smithy Bridge Primary School, said: “The Smithy Bridge Band had a successful run at Rochdale Music Festival in March and won the Primary School Brass Band section with honours and a score of 95 out of 100. Amazingly, our Training Band took part in the same competition section and came third.

“The Music for Youth event was a successful day which was well-run by Wardle Academy and it was well-supported by high performing musical groups of all genres.

“It is a great experience for our young musicians to meet such an eclectic mix of talented performers and to hear them play. We have been successful in getting through to the finals of the Music for Youth Festival in Birmingham for the last 12 years and we are really hoping that our performance was of a high enough standard to get us there again.

“We encourage children to take up the offer of high quality music lessons and to join our choirs and bands. We try to give children as many chances as possible to perform.”

Director of the band, Gwen Smith said “We thought it would be a good idea to put all of our Junior Blast band members together to showcase the talent of our under 13 musicians and it worked well.

"We received great comments from the Music Mentors and the audience.”

The band and tutors are waiting with anticipation for the results to see if they have made it to the next stage of Music for Youth, which is the finals at the National Festival in Birmingham. They will not find out until May whether or not they have made it through.