About Us
Milnrow Band is a traditional British-style brass band based in the foothills of the Pennines near Rochdale, Greater Manchester. The band is steeped in local history with its humble beginnings tracing back to 1869. Despite being over 150 years old, the band has seen the most successful period of its history written over the last two decades. In 2006 the band gained promotion to the Championship section of competitive music making and started to rub shoulders with the world’s elite brass bands, since then the band has grown from strength to strength and is ranked in the top 100 brass bands worldwide.
The band is now financially self-sufficient following a long period of sponsorship from the Co-op, which came to an end in 2012. Consequently the group undertakes a varied concert diary that includes performances as full band, 10 piece and quintet alongside a full competition diary in order to raise the funds necessary to maintain the bands ongoing costs.
Recent Achievements
National Finalists 2013 & 2017
All England International Masters Champions 2017
Grand Shield Champions 2013
Senior Trophy Champions 2009
Rochdale Contest Champions 2014, 2016 & 2017
Brighouse March & Hymn Tune Contest Champions 2017
Est. 1869
The band was formed by a number of enthusiastic music lovers who were connected to St. Stephen's Congregational Church, Milnrow in 1869. St Stephen's Band eventually changed its name to The Butterworth Band. (Milnrow village at that time was in two halves, Butterworth, being the part of the village where St. Stephen's Church was situated.)
The exact time of the next name change is unknown, however the band was playing under the name of "The Milnrow Brass Band Club" prior to the First World War in 1914. In 1927 the band created an unbeaten record by being in the prize lists in May, July and September contests at Belle-Vue Manchester. One of the first Brass Band Concerts ever given on radio in England was part of a series of three concerts given by the band prior to World War Two.
In 1998 the band merged with the Rochdale Co-op Band to form the United Norwest Co-op Milnrow Band. However, since losing sponsorship from the Co-op in the mid 2000’s the band is currently known as Milnrow Band.
Writing History
In 2011 the band joined forces with a relatively new Musical Director named Mareika Gray. Mareika brought new ideas and techniques to the group, upping the level of musicality to a level never seen at the band before. In 2013, Russell Gray guided the band to it’s best ever placing in the North West Regional Championships (3rd) and secured the first ever invitation for the band to perform at the National Championship of Great Britain at the Royal Albert Hall. Following on from this Mareika was back at the helm and guided the band to its first victory at the Grand Shield and thus securing an invitation to perform at the prestigious British Open Championships in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Throughout this period both the band and Mareika wrote brass band history and firmly cemented the band’s Championship section status.
In 2014 the band partnered with Mark Bentham and the success continued to flow. Three more appearances at the British Open Championships, 2nd place at the North West Regional Championships, our 2nd appearance at the Finals of the National Championships, multiple successes at the newly re-introduced Rochdale Contest and in 2017 victory at the All England Masters - a title we still hold to this day as the contest hasn’t been run since.
2019 brought upon the band’s 150th anniversary and to celebrate the band recorded a CD entitled ‘Heritage’ under the direction of Dennis Hadfield, unfortunately the celebrations were cut short with the emergence of the global Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 - as a result the band was unable to perform for some 20 months, the longest in the band’s post-war history.
The band are now writing a new chapter with Musical Director John Doyle.