Field Music team up with classic brass band to raise the roof at Fire Station Sunderland

One of the UK’s most-popular brass bands have teamed up with Sunderland indie rockers Field Music for their forthcoming city gig.

NASUWT Riverside Brass Band will perform at the venue from 3pm on Sunday, April 21 when they will be joined by Field Music, hugely well regarded by fans and critics for their distinctive art-pop sound.

The world’s number one brass conductor, Nicholas Childs, will lead the band through a programme which will include brass classics and favourites.

Later, the band will be joined by their special guests, Sunderland’s own Field Music, playing music commissioned for last year’s Durham Brass Festival which resulted in the recording of a just-released album, Binding Time.

NASUWT Riverside Brass Band was formed in 1875 in the former mining village of Pelton Fell and had a purpose-built rehearsal facility built in the village in 2010.

The band was formed as Pelton Fell Methodist Brass Band, then became Pelton Fell Colliery Band, then Newcastle Brown Ale Band until 2008 when the band was sponsored by the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).

Over recent years the band has been a principal performer at the Durham International Brass Festival, including a key role in the internationally-renowned Miners Hymns performances in 2010 and 2014. 

The band performs regularly at Glasshouse ICM in Gateshead and has been a major advocate of diverse music for brass bands. The NASUWT Riverside Brass Band won the North of England Championships in 2013 and has had further success winning the area championships five times in the last six years.

The band won the Grand Shield in 2019, appeared at the British Open Championships in 2019 and 2022, and qualified eight times in the last ten years for the finals of the National Championships of Great Britain at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Respected conductor Duncan Wilson will also conduct sections of The Fire Station Spring concert.

The band will be joined on stage by Field Music for a segment of the concert – ahead of their joint album release.

Field Music’s core members Peter Brewis and David Brewis are highly regarded for their cross-genre collaborations and innovative, contemporary compositions.

David Brewis said: “It feels really special that we’ll get to have this mini reunion in a venue which is very important to us and very important to Sunderland. It will actually be the first time we’ve met up with the band since we finished recording the album last year.

“The whole Binding Time project was quite involved for quite a long period of time; almost three years of researching, writing, arranging, rehearsing and recording, all affected by the complications of the pandemic so it’ll be nice to revisit the songs with a different perspective, in the context of a real brass band show.”

Binding Time is an album of songs inspired by the formation of the Durham Miners’ Association (DMA). The songs were originally written as a commission for Durham Brass Festival and were due to be performed at Redhills, the home of the DMA (known as The Pitman’s Parliament) in July 2021.

Unfortunately, Covid restrictions at the time meant that this performance could not take place and the songs were eventually premiered at Durham’s Gala Theatre in the summer of 2022. After that performance Peter and David Brewis set about recording the songs at their studio in Sunderland.

David said of the album: “We were looking for a balance between telling stories which someone with no prior knowledge could understand, and then also threading in all these fascinating factual details, and writing from perspectives which add some light and shade. We felt it couldn’t just be historical. It had to be personal too.”

Andrew Dipper, of The Fire Station, said: “We’re delighted to have two such massive names in their own respective musical genres. The combination of pop genius and brass band brilliance will make for an eclectic and uplifting afternoon, and the unrivalled acoustics of The Fire Station means we’re a perfect venue for what will be a special afternoon.”

For more information or to book tickets, priced from £12, go to www.thefirestation.org.uk