Christmas and New Year 2016/17
/This year, the band’s Christmas season began on 11th November and ended on Christmas Eve. Band members played at the Kennedy Centre, the Park Centre, Greencastle Methodist, Belvoir Methodist, St. Nicholas’ Parish, Belfast City Hall, Conlig Presbyterian, St. Thomas’ Parish, the Abbeycentre, Whitehead Methodist, De Courcy Centre, Tesco Lisburn Road and Hillsborough Village Centre.
One of the highlights in the Downshire Brass calendar is the annual ‘Christmas Spectacular’ event which was held in St Thomas’ Parish Church. Grosvenor Chorale was the band’s guest choir who, once again, entertained a packed house with a wide variety of music. Downshire Junior and Youth Bands also took to the stage to show off all their hard work from the previous few months which was greatly praised by audience members. The band would like to thank Grosvenor and their Musical Director Edward Craig for their wonderful contribution to the evening and to Rev. Paul Jack and the Select Vestry of St Thomas’ for allowing them to have the use of such a beautiful building.
It has been a very busy couple of months and the band would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who invited them to play at the various events and for the support from those who attended concerts, bought CDs or donated money at shopping centre collections. As you can see from the photographs, the band thoroughly enjoyed the festive period!
The first event of 2017 for Downshire Brass was at the wedding of baritone player Gary Dodsworth to Catherine Woods, solo cornet player of The Wellington Memorial Silver Band. The band thoroughly enjoyed playing at the service and evening reception, all agreeing that the new Mrs Dodsworth and her bridesmaids were stunning (and the groom scrubbed up well too!) Many congratulations Mr and Mrs Dodsworth!
