Yorkshire Concertina Club and the North Eastern Concertina Players are launching a new Northern band day, to be held in October in Boston Spa, near Wetherby.
Open to all concertina players it is an opportunity to gather and play band arrangements together under the leadership of NECP's David Turner and YCC's Carolyn Wade, both experienced arrangers and conductors for concertina bands.
YCC Chair Graham Heffernan said: "We regularly travel to the South West and South East to enjoy a band day, and there is also a concertina weekend in Swaledale every year where there is the option to join a scratch band, but no dedicated band event in the North at the moment, so the two clubs together decided it would be a great idea to host one.
"We are hoping that our concertina friends from all over the UK will come along and join us for the day, and perhaps take time to enjoy Yorkshire and the North East too."
Boston Spa is only a short drive from the tourist towns of Knaresborough and Harrogate, and half an hour from York, with lots of accommodation available. There is plenty of parking at the venue, and while tea and coffee will be provided, players should bring their own packed lunch. 
If you are interested in joining the event, please email northernconcertinaband@gmail.com. You will need to be able to read music but the arrangements will be straightforward to include a range of abilities. We all look forward to seeing you there.

Friends of the YCC invited us to play at Wellington Place in Leeds on December 20th as part of their Christmas festivities.
We gathered in a beautifully decorated atrium around an enormous Christmas tree and played carols and Christmas songs for the office workers who were based in the building.
The acoustics were amazing, and for anyone on Facebook, the link takes you to a recording of our performance captured by our friends at Wellington Place.
Many thanks to Paula and her team at WP for inviting us along, it was a lovely way to go into the Christmas holiday season.

Concertina tutor and historian Dave Ball, pictured, was our guest at the October YCC meeting where he talked about music from historic entertainments which had become part of the British folk tune scene. 
This was a fascinating dig into folk music history, accompanied by tunes which the club had a go at.
Tunes included a March from Rinaldo, by Handel, which was first performed in 1711 at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket, and later found its way into the Compleat Dancing Master tune book, which is still used today as a source of dance tunes played in folk sessions.
Other works included:
Three and a Duce, by Steven Storace (libretto by Prince Hoare) from 1794
Orpheus and Eurydice by Theobald, an opera pantomime perfomred in 1740
Poor Soldier by William Shield from a comic opera by O'Keeffe, first performed in 1783.
For those interested in folk music, the tunes will feel very familiar.
Our thanks to Dave for a great meeting, and fascinating discussion about how music follows us through the centuries.