GUEST CONDUCTOR 2020

​The Fermanagh Tyrone Brass Band Summer School is committed to giving brass players the best educational experience possible. The course is welcoming, relaxed and we want to give everyone the chance to learn something whatever level they are at.

We have engaged top class tutors and soloists including tenor horn soloist Owen Farr, RTE Concert Orchestra’s Mick Marshall, Tredegar band’s Dewi Griffiths, Black Dyke’s Laura Conway and Swiss cornet star Kathleen Gaspoz in recent years. We are always looking to expand and develop the course and this year we will be at our new location with on-site accommodation. We are also delighted to welcome our first ever Guest Conductor.

A member of the Leyland Band under maestro Richard Evans (becoming principal cornet at the age of 17), Desford Colliery under James Watson and Principal Cornet with the Black Dyke Mills and Yorkshire Building Society Brass Band there is no doubt about this person’s musical and brass band experience. He took up the baton with Tredegar Town Band in 2008 and has led the band to the National Finals every year since.
He is also the only conductor ever to lead a band to victory at the Grand Shield and British Open in the same year with Tredegar’s memorable double in 2010.

He is currently Director of Brass Band Studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire, in demand as a conductor and is Musical Director of the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland. We are delighted to welcome Ian Porthouse as Guest Conductor on our 2020 FTBBSS Course.