Programme Note
This short tribute to the Grimethorpe Colliery Band was written as a result of a request from the conductor and composer Elgar Howarth. It was first performed at a concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, to raise awareness and support for the Band after the closure of many of the Yorkshire coalfields, including that at Grimethorpe, as a result of the Thatcher Government’s policies. The work is reflective and rhetorical in mood.