'I joined a brass band as a child and never looked back'

"I definitely wasn't cool growing up, but to be honest, I didn't really mind," said Stephanie Binns, 32, about joining a brass band when she was a child.

"While my friends were trying to work out friendships and little disputes, I had been socialising with people of all sorts of generations and backgrounds," she said.

Binns, who joined a band aged eight years old, said her hobby had opened many doors and seen her travel the world for performances over the years.

She said it had made up for any concerns she had growing up about trying to look cool with her friends.

"I already had that kind of social stability that brass bands can provide.

"So maybe it wasn't cool, but when I think about how lucky I've been... like travel the world and winning numerous competitions, I don't think it really matters whether you're cool or not."

On Saturday, hundreds of brass band musicians are travelling to the 100th West of England Bandsmen's Festival, also known as the Bugle Band Contest, in Cornwall.

The event, which runs from 08:30 to 23:00 BST, has seven different categories of competition, including a youth section.

Binns, who is an adjudicators at this year's contest, recently won the Champion Band of Europe 2026 in Austria with the Gloucester-based Flowers Band - for whom she is the assistant principal cornet player.

She now lives in Manchester, but grew up in Cornwall, playing in bands including Mount Charles and St Austell.

Binns said she was not from a particularly musical family, but a chance meeting while she was at school got her into her hobby.

"Someone came to my school to do a demonstration and I went home and said 'I'm going to do that'," Binns said.

"So I kind of fell into it when I was eight and have carried on all the way through to now.

"I haven't ever looked back."

Binns is also chairperson for the Cornwall Youth Brass Band, which she played in when she was a child.

She said getting young people to become brass musicians could be challenging given "how the world has changed" since she was a child.

But she felt there was still a strong interest in brass music from younger groups and would encourage anyone who wanted to join a band to seek out local opportunities.

"After Covid, the youth band was left with about nine players, but now we're up to 40+ players again," Binns said.

"We're going towards bringing in internationally acclaimed players and musicians to work with our young people.

"So I think it's really positive and I'd actively encourage anyone who isn't sure to just get involved."

For 22-year-old Lia Teague, she felt destined to be part of brass bands as her mother Helen played in the Bugle Silver Band and her father Andrew was a promoter of the Bugle Band Contest for several years.

Teague, who plays principal cornet for Camborne Town Band after first picking up the instrument when she was seven, said a lot of her personality growing up became music-orientated and helped with her creativity.

"I think you get an immense sense of achievement, both as an individual and working as a team towards a shared goal," Teague, who is also the contest's press secretary, said.

She said it also impacted on her maturity as she was playing in bands with adults from an early age.

Teague said she never worried about what her friends thought about her playing in a brass band.

"It did mean I missed a lot of social gatherings though.

"I remember having to say 'I can't, I've got band' and my mates would be like 'well I expected you to say that'."

Teague said she had noticed the number of children and younger people at bands had "dwindled" in recent years but remained confident brass bands would continue to have healthy numbers in terms of players.

Teague said: "Certainly down here in Cornwall there are still a lot of keen, young brass musicians, which is lovely to see.

"There's also a lot of people who are working hard to make sure that continues."

• Listen: The 100th West of England Bandsmen's Festival

Percussionist Harry Chambers said he started playing in bands at the age of "eight or nine" and described himself as a "Jack of all trades but master of none" because of the variety of instruments he plays.

The 20-year-old, who is a member of Cornwall's St Dennis Band, plays instruments including glockenspiel, tubular bells, base drum, cymbals and vibraphone.

"Since I first joined a band, I've never really looked back or looked much outside of brass bands," he said.

"I've played elsewhere, but brass bands have always been the thing that's interested me."

Chambers lives near Honiton, in Devon, meaning he faces a three-hour round trip just for band practice, which involved three sessions during the past week ahead of the contest.

While he admitted it sounded like an "insane" journey to do regularly, Chambers said it was one he was always happy to do because being in the band gave him "a lot of purpose".

"I have mental health issues, including clinical depression, and being part of a band helps me no end with that," said Chambers, who has played at the Royal Albert Hall during his time with the band.

"The camaraderie helps, it helps knowing you've got friends there and actually just having something to focus on, that's a really important thing.

"It's something to focus on which requires a lot of attention and can be so rewarding and so good, especially for me, it's so good for your mental health."

Christopher Bond, who will be at Saturday's event as conductor of Northamptonshire's GUS Band, became involved with brass bands when he started learning to play the cornet while he was at primary school in Camborne.

The 34-year-old eventually went on to join the the town's youth band before moving to study at the Royal Welsh College of Music in Cardiff and moving into composing and conducting.

Bond said he was reluctant to enter the brass band world at first, but it had ended up "shaping" his life.

"It's such a community thing," Bond said.

"When you're a young person, to make friends doing something that actually becomes quite enjoyable in a group was something I really enjoyed."

Bond, who has composed one of the pieces being played at Saturday's competition, said playing in brass bands provided a "brilliant social outlet" for people of all ages.

"It's all about teamwork, working together, there's so many social skills involved in being in a brass band that extend far beyond learning a musical instrument," said Bond, who will be at the contest with the GUS Band.

He said there still appeared to be a large youthful audience picking up instruments and joining brass bands.

Bond said while there were times when he worried whether his friends growing up thought he was "uncool", but he was "really proud" to be involved with brass bands.

"I think that's the thing to remember for any young person - something that on the surface might be deemed as uncool, actually once you get quite good at it, it then becomes very cool," he added.

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