It’s quite a feat for a British ensemble older than the Proms to be making its debut at this year’s festival, but such is the case of Tredegar Town Band. Formally constituted in 1876, and with a performing CV stretching from Rambert Ballet to Matthew Warchus’s Bafta-winning film Pride, there’s a sense of making up for lost time with not one, but two Tredegar Proms this week . First, the band teams up with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ryan Bancroft for Gavin Higgins’ massive Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra, then there’s a late-night Prom of their own the following evening.
You have to go back to 1989 and Charles Groves with the National Youth Brass Band for the last time the BBC Proms dedicated an entire concert to brass band music. Why the wait? “I wonder if it’s an image problem,” Higgins says, “and people still think it’s a bit twee, that brass bands are just the Hovis advert. I also think some assume that, because it’s amateur, essentially, that means it’s not going to be as good.”
