The Black Dyke Band is among the world's premiere brass bands, as well as one of the oldest. In addition to consistent competition victories in Britain and beyond, the band has collaborated with prominent classical and pop artists, including Paul McCartney. The John Foster & Son Black Dyke Mills Band dates ultimately to 1816, when a brass-and-wind band was formed by employees at the Black Dyke Mills of Queensbury, West Yorkshire, England. That group disbanded after some years of operation, as did a successor, the Queenshead Band. However, a third incarnation, formed in 1855 with 18 musicians and sharp new uniforms made of cloth from the mills, proved permanent. Many of the members were mill employees, and the group has sometimes been known as the Black Dyke Mills Band. Although the mills are no longer in operation, the band continues to rehearse in its original quarters and to use its original logo featuring a stag and the Latin words "act justly and fear nothing." From the beginning, the band maintained a reputation for high quality. The group made its first recording in 1904. Known far beyond Yorkshire, it embarked in 1906 on a 200-concert tour of the U.S. and Canada. The band has included members who have gone on to successful careers in the classical music world, including Jack Pinches, who became the solo trombonist in the band at age 16 and later served as the principal trombonist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Black Dyke principal cornetists William Lang and Maurice Murphy, who became principal trumpeters of the London Symphony Orchestra. The band has been a consistent winner at competitions in Britain and continental Europe; in 2014, it won the British Brass Band Championships for the 23rd time, a record; it has also won 15 times at the European Brass Band Championships. The group's most recent win at the British Brass Band Championships came in 2023. The Black Dyke Band has a lengthy catalog of recordings, stretching back into the LP and 78 rpm eras. For many years, it was associated exclusively with the Chandos label, which, for a time, maintained its own brass band subsidiary, and it continues to record occasionally for Chandos. Since 2007, the Black Dyke Band has recorded mostly for Naxos, which issued the band's recording John Rutter: Anthems, Hymns and Gloria for Brass Band in 2020. The group returned in 2023 on the album Peter Graham: Force of Nature on Naxos. By that time, including compilations, the band boasted a recording catalog of some 100 digital items; over its entire long history, the band has issued about 350 albums. ~ James Manheim, Rovi

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