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Strike up the band – Cool stuff for NZ Music Month #5

Brass and pipe bands have a long and illustrious history in New Zealand.

Christchurch stands out – the Addington Workshops Brass Band was formed in 1883. It was composed of workshop employees, and formed to feature at picnics and other social events. It continues today as Addington Brass.

Woolston Brass has a been around for a while, as their history reports:

… the band’s founding year is formally recognized as 1891 when George Bonnington took charge and reformed the band under the aegis of the Loyal Perseverance Lodge of the Manchester Independent Order of Oddfellows, a long-winded appellation that, perhaps unsurprisingly, only stuck until 1894, when it was replaced with the title, “Woolston Brass Band”.

Here they are at a street march at the 2001 New Zealand National Band Championship playing Flourish for an occasion.

The Canterbury Caledonian Society Pipe Band formed in 1902.  This year the band won its first ever National Pipe Band Championships in Grade 1, at Tauranga. The band won the Medley and the Street March, and won the piping, ensemble and drumming overall throughout Grade 1.

Celebrate NZ Music Month:

• Find out more about New Zealand music stuff
• Explore NZ Music Month events at Christchurch City Libraries
• Enter our NZ Music Month competition and go into the draw to win an iPod Nano.