Over the past three months, the Sutton Girls Brass Ensemble have had the opportunity to prepare pieces to help a fourth-year BMus student, Nat Leighton from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with his major project for his degree, worth 50% of his final marks, by performing as part of a concert of brass music.  We played Nat’s arrangements of ‘Viva la Vida’ by Coldplay and ‘I Will Follow Him’ from ‘Sister Act’, and two other pieces, ‘Let Me Entertain You’ by Robbie Williams and ‘Gonna Fly Now’ from Rocky. We have rehearsed these pieces once a week since January, with Nat coming in to conduct and help us.

On Friday 28th March 2025, the concert took place in the Bradshaw Hall at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. It featured two bands, Birmingham Citadel Salvation Army Brass Band and The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Band, exploring the ‘Sounds of The Salvation Army’ whilst we played before the concert and during the interval and watched the rest from the audience.

After our performance prior to the concert, I asked a few others what they thought so far: “I thought the balance was really lovely. I thought we were phenomenal as a group, you know? And I just thought, ten out of ten from me.” and “Feeling good? Yeah.”
We then proceeded to watch the first half of the concert featuring Birmingham Citadel Brass Band, and it was spectacular, with my favourite piece of the first half being ‘Golden Stairs’ by Sam Creamer.

But it went too quickly as it was time for our final performance, the interval! We played to a larger crowd this time, and it was amazing to play with the other students in the group, as well as two other students from the Conservatoire. We got a positive response from the crowd and were congratulated by some of the musicians. Again, I asked for some more opinions from the others: “I think it went well.”, “It was cool.”, “Really good,” and I even asked Mr Collet, who said it was “Absolutely brilliant.”

After, we watched the second half, which featured the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Band which had some beautiful pieces in it and my favourites of the night: ‘Love Eternal’ by Gavin Lamplough and ‘Al A Manara’ by Paul Sharman.

Finally, we were invited on stage for a final bow and got the opportunity to sit with both bands for the final massed item ‘The Kingdom Triumphant’ by Eric Ball. It was amazing to sit with the bands and feel the music around us.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience for us as a group. We played really well together and had a lovely time.