Steven Allen
The Lancaster British Brass Band has been going strong since it began in 2005.
Now, with a new conductor — who's British, by the way — at the helm the band is moving in a new direction.
Expect to hear the Beatles, Brubeck and a rock version of Bach at the series of concerts the band will perform Saturday at First Presbyterian Church, Sunday at Lititz Church of the Brethren and May 6 at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd.
"A lot of the music British brass bands played was pop music," explains Steven Allen, the band's new conductor. "The bands were like a civic iPod. They played everywhere — parties, weddings, political rallies."
Allen is an associate professor of music at both Rider and Rutgers universities, a composer, president of the North American Brass Band Association and the founder of the Princeton Brass Band.
It was a friend who plays in the Princeton band as well as the Lancaster band who recommended Allen for the job.
"I really want our concerts to have something for everyone," Allen says.
The band also will play "Danny Boy," "Resurgam," a piece written for British brass band by Eric Ball, and "Hymn of the Highlands," a series of Scottish dances by Philip Sparke.
Allen got interested in music when he was a child growing up in southern England.
"It was asthma that got me into it," he says.
His doctor wasn't sure what to do and suggested a musical instrument that would require specific breathing.
Allen started playing the euphonium. It was a good fit.
"I ended up winning national competitions and played with some of the best brass bands in the country and ended up conducting some as well," he says.
Allen gave up music for about seven years in the 1980s to go into the Christian ministry.
"I got disillusioned with the hierarchy of that group and went into academics," Allen says. "And then in 1999, my wife and I moved to America. I got the Princeton Brass Band going in 2004, which marked my return to brass bands."
He admits to having been a little skeptical about forming the band in America, but soon discovered that British brass bands are highly popular here.
"It's an incredibly warm sound, very resonant," Allen says. "It gets to you some way. The word spirit comes from breath, actually using breath, and this might sound a little new-agey, but these bands sort of take your breath away."
Allen notes that a British brass band sounds very different from a brass ensemble or a concert band.
A British brass band features cornets, trombones, tubas, horns and percussion, but no trumpets or French horns.
They began in Northern England in the early 1800s, when mill owners realized it would be better to have workers playing instruments than hanging out in pubs drinking and listening to political rabble-rousers.
The companies encouraged workers to take up the instruments, even purchasing them and giving them lessons.
"When you're learning to play, you get further on brass instruments than any other instrument," Allen says, noting that beyond that, becoming a great brass player can be exceedingly difficult.
Most of the musicians who played in the British brass, even the best bands, were not full-time musicians, so brass instruments were perfect.
Factories would have their own bands and the competition among them was fierce.
"They were like the rock stars of the era," Allen says. "If the Beatles had been born in the 1850s, they would have played in a brass band."
He points to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," (both the music and the album cover art) as an example of how ingrained the bands were in British culture.
Allen is eager to begin playing with the Lancaster band, noting with a laugh that he's "the first conductor who comes soaked in the tradition."
Lancaster British Brass Band
Sat. 7:30 p.m.
Offering
First Presbyterian Church
140 E. Orange St.
Also, Sun. 3 p.m.
Offering
Lititz Church of the Brethen
300 W. Orange St., Lititz
419-8325
