Hannaford Street Silver Band

Hannaford Street Silver Band

Hannaford Street Silver Band. Ca 21-piece professional brass band, formed in 1983 in Toronto by trumpeters Robert Sutherland and Raymond Tizzard, modelled after 19th-century British brass bands. The band first performed in the 1983 Canada Day celebration at Harbourfront.

The brass instruments played in the band (with the exception of the trombones and percussion) are in the saxhorn family and include cornets, a flugelhorn, tenor and baritone horns, a euphonium, tubas, trombones, timpani, and percussion. It normally functions without a conductor but on occasion has hired guest conductors, including Morley Calvert, Stephen Chenette, Wayne Jeffrey, James McKay, Bramwell Tovey, and English brass music composer Edward Gregson. Its repertoire includes works from the 16th to the 20th centuries, including works by Canadian composers. Many arrangements are by Gordon Langford or Howard Snell or by band members.

The band's annual concert series began in 1983 at Little Trinity Church and, in 1989, moved to the Jane Mallett Theatre. A number of choirs have been guests at the band's Christmas concerts, including the Hart House Chorus (1985-6), the McMaster University Choir (1987), the Tallis Singers(1988), the Bell'Arte Singers (1989), and the Orpheus Choir (1990). It performed in the film 'The Boy in Blue' about the 19th-century Toronto rower Ned Hanlon (1985, International Cinema) and in 1988 toured to eastern Canada and used the tour program as the basis for its CBC recording The Hannaford Street Silver Band with conductor Stephen Chenette (1988, CBC SMCD-5103). The disc includes works by Calvert, Lavallée, Herbert L. Clarke, J. Scott Irvine, and Leonard Ballantine among others.

The band has commissioned and premiered works such as Leonard Ballantine's Hannaford Street March (1985); Gary Kulesha's Soundings for Boat, Bay, and Brass (1985 at the Festival of the Sound, later broadcast by the CBC), tuba player J. Scott Irvine's Hannaford Overture (1986 at Music at Sharon, also broadcast by CBC); John Beckwith's arrangements of five songs from 19th-century Canada (also at Music at Sharon 1986, commissioned by the festival), Malcolm Forsyth's Songs from the Qu'apelle Valley (1987); and Irvine's Concertino for Euphonium and Brass Band (1988) and Bring on the Brass (1990), recorded, along with nine other works, with R. A. Herriot conducting and Leo McKern narrating, on the CD of the same name (MRP CD-108); it also premiered the brass version of Kulesha's Romance, (1989)

The Hannaford Street Silver Band was incorporated in 1986 and introduced in 1990 an affiliated Hannaford Street Youth Band, conducted by Curtis Metcalf and Raymond Tizzard.