About
St. Joseph’s Brass Band was founded in Strabane, Northern Ireland, in 1947 as a Brass and Reed Band changing over to all brass in the late sixties, due mostly to the fact that it was becoming more and more difficult to recruit woodwind players or indeed get anyone to train them.
Known locally as “St. Joe’s” and also affectionately as ‘the town band,’ we are based in the parish of Camus, presently using the former North West Institute building as our band hall.
The band arranges various events throughout the year and in the recent past have been responsible for bringing world famous bands such as Black Dyke, The Yorkshire Building Society Band as well as soloists of the calibre of Steven Mead and Alan Morrison to Strabane for concerts, workshops and festivals of brass music.
Our conductor is Noel Barr Jr (DipMus Open) whilst our associate conductor is Duncan Beckley. The band does not have a sponsor and therefore membership subscription and fund raising are always ongoing. If you feel that you would like to help us financially or in any other way please get in touch as any type of support is greatly appreciated.
We are members of both the NIBA and BBL, with a multitude of 1st Place titles in both the 3rd and 2nd sections. With much hard work and dedication from the membership the band goes from strength to strength. Now coming to the end of our celebration of our 60th year as a band, we are proud to have returned to the NIBA autumn contest and re-emerged into the 3rd section, familiarising ourselves with the contesting scene and picking up 1st place. Not bad having been out of action in Northern Ireland for a considerable time.
Having come off the back of another memorable and entertaining year, we hope that we will continue to flourish and are happy to have celebrated our 60th year in style. Here’s to another 60!
Here are links to downloadable documents that are legal requirements.