In spring 2010 OCM brought together community street bands from accross the UK. Over three days the bands honed their skills, shared stories and pulled together performances. The weekend was called Street Band Gathering.
The weekend began with A Joyful Noise, an afternoon exploring the role of street bands in community celebrations, cultural identity and music education. Long-time street band leaders and music workshop facilitators Tim Hill and Pete Moser looked at street band traditions worldwide, how these relate to English street music histories and at models for placing street music at the core of communities and music education. Mary Genis gave her perspectives on street music and carnival in Trinidad and Brazil.
Over the following two days Street Band Gathering had live online link-ups with key people in street band culture overseas: Kevin Leppmann of HonkFest! in Boston and Maiwenn De Milizag of Fanfare Zebaliz, France.
Tim Hill
Tim Hill has been making loud noises outdoors for over 25 years. He runs the band Tongues of Fire, helps
create community street bands, has run countless workshops and been musical director on many community and professional outdoor performances. He co-leads Rag and Bone and Leviathan Whispers, two outdoor
performance companies. His interests include English traditions, outdoor performance, giant horns, free jazz and improvisation, landscape music and composition. Tim is also currently Outdoor Arts Officer for Somerset.
Pete Moser
Pete Moser is a composer, performer and teacher. A former musical director of Welfare State and many street
bands, he has been the director of More Music in Morecambe. He has written scores for many theatre, opera
and dance projects as well as songs for occasions and large-scale choral pieces. He is a multi-instrumentalist
and teaches percussion, voice, brass and song writing, as well as the art of running workshops. He has recently co-edited a book 'Community Music: A Handbook‟ and also known as the Fastest-One-Man-Band-In-The-World.
Mary Genis
Mary is the award winning artistic director of CultureMix Arts Ltd, providing a highly respected UK wide carnival
arts education service in music, costume and dance. Based in Berkshire, Mary leads RASPO Steel Orchestra,
empowering aspiring young musicians with professional business development training and creative industry
work experience. She has worked with WOMAD, is an Arts Council England advisor and a guest lecturer at
Thames Valley University.
Kevin Leppmann
Trombonist Kevin Leppmann is a founder and one of the organisers of HonkFest the “Festival of Activist Street
Bands” in Boston. The festival attracts more than 300 musicians in 20 bands from across the USA and beyond.
Many of these bands started playing together during protests against the Iraq war and the US „honk‟ scene has
thrived ever since also spawning: HONK! West in Seattle, PRONK! In Providence and BONK! in Brooklyn.
Maïwenn de Milizag
Maiwenn is part of Fanfare Zebaliz, the French street band who organise the Fanfare Festival in Brest which
attracts „fanfares‟ from all over France. The festival also has a ten day programme of invited guests including
professional bands from Cuba and the Balkans.
Please note: due to technical restraints beyond our control the audio quality is not up to the usual OCM Downloads standard. These talks are only available to listen to online, they are not available to buy.
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