Petworth Town Band hoping for full house at Christmas concert

Petworth Town Band, one of West Sussex's few remaining traditional town bands, is hoping for a full church for its Christmas concert.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this

00:06morning to speak to Martin Streeter, Bandmaster of Petworth Town Band. Now, you've got a lovely

00:11sounding Christmas concert coming up, December 21st. Tell me a little bit where and when,

00:18and a little bit about the programme.

00:20Well, the band's Christmas concert is going to be held in St Mary's Church in Petworth

00:26on the 21st, that's Saturday, the 21st of December, and the concert starts at 7.30.

00:35Along with the band, there will be a really lovely modern choir coming along, and they're

00:43called Required, and they come from Turner's Hill. They're very similar to Petworth Town

00:49Band. They play, they sing the music, sing the songs for enjoyment, and they're a really

00:56friendly group. And it's going to be a fantastic concert with all Christmas music, and both

01:04modern and old pieces, and it's just going to be great fun.

01:09That sounds great. And you were saying that, to an extent, you battle for places, don't

01:15you? Because people think brass band boring, but it's absolutely not, is it?

01:20It's not boring at all, but the band plays all forms of music, from theatre, film, modern

01:28pop, to the traditional brass type band music. So, a very mixed bag of music that, to really,

01:37to cater for everybody's enjoyment, really.

01:41And that's an important message for you to get out, isn't it? Because perhaps you're

01:46not sufficiently supported by the people of Petworth, not as much as you would like, perhaps?

01:52No, we would like to see a full church, and we'd like to see a lot more Petworth residents

02:02come along to support us, and just to see what we do. I know the people that do come,

02:09they always go away from the concert really happy and joyful. This is going to be a really,

02:16really, really good concert, and four days away from Christmas Day, you've got to come.

02:22Fantastic. And where do people get tickets from?

02:27Tickets can be bought online, or in Austin's hardware shop in Petworth town. Now, we have

02:36a Facebook page, we have Instagram, and we also have a band website. Please look at

02:42all of that, those places, and you'll see all of the information about the band, what

02:48we do, where we play, and all of the interesting background to the band over the many years.

02:57Well, I hope it goes brilliantly. I hope you get the full church that you deserve.

03:01Lovely to speak to you, Martin.

03:02Thank you very much, Phil. Thank you very much. Thank you.