Charter Band is a concert band. In this section, we look at what this means and how it differs from other types of ensemble.
Types of ensemble
Any group of musicians, from a duet right up to a full symphony orchestra, could constitute an ensemble or band. Charter Band is a type of wind band: it takes players from across both the orchestral woodwind section (piccolo, flute, oboe / cor anglais, sopranino / soprano / alto / bass clarinet, soprano / alto / tenor / baritone saxophone, bassoon) and the orchestral brass section (trumpet / cornet, French horn, tenor horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba). In addition, the band comprises a percussion section and, occasionally, a string bass or piano accompaniment.
Types of wind ensemble
There is a small but thriving wind band community across the world - administered through professional associations such as the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles - and within this community, debate has long raged over how to correctly define a wind band. Indeed, many observers see the proliferation of names meaning more or less the same thing - military band, concert band, symphonic band, wind band, wind orchestra, wind ensemble - as one of the key public relations errors that means that the population at large has much less affection for a wind band than it does for community brass bands and the like.
Charter Band chooses to define itself as a concert band and, although the terms are largely interchangeable, this reflects a desire on the part of the band to tend towards contemporary and popular music as opposed to classic symphonic works.
History of wind bands
In the first years of the twentieth century, wind bands were mainly confined to military groups, playing marches (albeit sometimes with some flair, as with the works of the great American bandleader John Philip Sousa).
Due to various medical ailments, the British composer Gustav Holst specialised in trombone and, while teaching at St. Paul's Girls School, he began to become curious about the range of music available to wind musicians. In 1909, he published his First Suite in Eb for Military Band, the first noteworthy piece of music for non-military symphonic wind ensembles and still a crucial part of the wind band repertoire today.
Towards the middle of the twentieth century, the massive symphonic bands seen up to that point began to diminish in size, resulting in more agile groups capable of adapting to the popular jazz-inflected music of the 1930s - 1950s. It is this shape of band that forms the modern concert band.
Simultaneously, community wind ensembles began springing up, although not in the same volume as the ubiquitous working-class brass band.
