Join the band

The Rutland Big Band is a 'community band'. We're amateurs, but we have a professional band leader who has been teaching and making us sound better and better over the last few years. Our numbers have grown steadily, but we still welcome more players of any age. If you fancy playing in a live big band, then please get in touch. It's a great opportunity to improve your playing, and you're more than welcome to come along to see how you get on. We'd suggest somewhere around grade 5 standard as a minimum. We try to practice a variety of music to keep everyone happy, so we play jazz, 40s swing, some party music and more.

There is a monthly subscription, which pays for our music, practice room and for Marcus' excellent tuition. At present, membership for those in full-time education is free.

We practice on Monday evenings in Manton, when our band leader and trombone maestro, Marcus Reynolds, helps us play the notes in the right order. Afterwards some of us retire to one of the local pubs. For non-locals, Uppingham is in the county of Rutland, roughly equidistant between Leicester, Nottingham and Peterborough. To further help the search engines, the big band can play in Stamford, Melton Mowbray and Oakham.

What instrument should I be able to play?

Big band music generally calls for people to play a trombone, trumpet, saxophone, bass, keyboard or drums, with some singing required too. If you can do any of these then we'd love to hear from you, but we are usually more interested in some instruments than others. Give us a call and then come along and see how you get on. We like permanent band members, and we also like to have some people we can call on as deps in an emergency.