Groups / bands etc in Cumbria / Borders Area

Tenor Viol

Full of frets in Cumbria
Café Supporter
7,029
Penrith, Cumbria, UK
Level
Ca. G7 cello, G6 sax
As many will be aware, I moved from Shropshire to the north end of the Lake District (Cumbria) in mid-2023. I've struggled to find any playing opportunities. The kind of thing I'm looking for is a wind band, a community band/group/orchestra, sax ensemble, or a big band. I'd prefer to play bari/tenor.

I've tried the usual option of the Amateur Orchestras UK web site and the only wind band seems to be in Kendal. That's not idea as in winter it means driving over Shap and it's 30 miles each way. They don't have any sax vacancies so it's moot anyway. There is something on the Furness peninsular, but that's a very long way - around 50 miles away. Carlisle doesn't seem to have anything, which is odd given it's a city twice the size of Chester.

The local U3A groups don't seem to have much either - I have asked.

Not all groups are members of the orchestras web site and many are not particularly social media savvy, so just asking if anyone on here is aware of anything? It's a bit of a long shot as I know there are not that many members in this area. Travelling into the Borders is ok as long as it's a major route.

PS I'm trying to avoid the option of setting up a group myself...
 
Carlisle jazz club meets at the rugby club Warwick rd. CA1 1LW. Thursdays.

You might make some new contacts there. They also have a Facebook page.

My only other suggestion is contacting adult education dept. and local music teachers.
Maybe musicians playing local pub gigs have knowledge of local groups.
 
Carlisle jazz club meets at the rugby club Warwick rd. CA1 1LW. Thursdays.

You might make some new contacts there. They also have a Facebook page.

My only other suggestion is contacting adult education dept. and local music teachers.
Maybe musicians playing local pub gigs have knowledge of local groups.
There is an education services group that meets on Saturdays but it's on the coast towards Barrow.

I know where the rugby club is as it's near where the orchestra rehearses.
 
I know it's even further, but there's the Manchester Saxophone Orchestra, I don't think its a weekly thing, possibly monthly, and they do some ad-hoc workshops,.they're quite active on Social Media.

In February there's the Liverpool Sax day, with some ensemble playing, and a session with a rhythm section too, from memory it's more relaxed and not as busy as Manchester Sax Day, I'll be going along with a few from the orchestra I play with.

Perhaps speak to some local sax teachers, they usually know of groups and who to speak to.
 
I know it's even further, but there's the Manchester Saxophone Orchestra, I don't think its a weekly thing, possibly monthly, and they do some ad-hoc workshops,.they're quite active on Social Media.

In February there's the Liverpool Sax day, with some ensemble playing, and a session with a rhythm section too, from memory it's more relaxed and not as busy as Manchester Sax Day, I'll be going along with a few from the orchestra I play with.

Perhaps speak to some local sax teachers, they usually know of groups and who to speak to.
Yes, I'm aware of both of those. Manchester is too far for a regular thing as it's a 2 hour drive. I'd still be playing with the Café trio/quartet/quintet/sextet/septet/octet otherwise...
 
Carlisle has a community orchestra. City of Carlisle Orchestra - Home There's the Papcastle Orchestra at Cockermouth - which seems to be called Cockermouth Community Orchestra now. Cockermouth Community Orchestra Don't think they have saxophones though.
Get in touch with Roz Sluman, one of the main sax teachers nr Carlisle. She runs workshops and has groups that play together. She can put you in touch with Joe's group, a few sax players that get together -( but Joe plays bari). There's another that meets in Penrith
There was some (organised) jam sessions at the Old Fire Station, but I'm not sure if these have restarted. There's several open mic sessions about and music that you can join in with at the Source, in Carlisle.
There's the Cliff Eland Big Band, and the La'al Big Band on the West coast and another across at Dumfries called DG Kollective.
Lots of music about but it often isn't publicised so you have to search it out. Facebook has some groups for finding Musicians in Cumbria, for example.
 
Carlisle has a community orchestra. City of Carlisle Orchestra - Home There's the Papcastle Orchestra at Cockermouth - which seems to be called Cockermouth Community Orchestra now. Cockermouth Community Orchestra Don't think they have saxophones though.
Get in touch with Roz Sluman, one of the main sax teachers nr Carlisle. She runs workshops and has groups that play together. She can put you in touch with Joe's group, a few sax players that get together -( but Joe plays bari). There's another that meets in Penrith
There was some (organised) jam sessions at the Old Fire Station, but I'm not sure if these have restarted. There's several open mic sessions about and music that you can join in with at the Source, in Carlisle.
There's the Cliff Eland Big Band, and the La'al Big Band on the West coast and another across at Dumfries called DG Kollective.
Lots of music about but it often isn't publicised so you have to search it out. Facebook has some groups for finding Musicians in Cumbria, for example.
Thank you for that - I think you're right about not publicised as despite a lot of digging most of those have not come up. I play cello with City of Carlisle Orchestra. The Cockermouth one is not on the UK Amateur Orchestras site, which explains that one. I'll have a look.
 
I'm just back from a sax weekend in Birmingham and met 2 ladies from Carlisle who played in a couple of bands. I'll see if I can find out any specifics for you.
 
Thank you for the various suggestions.

As someone who has been on the committees of numerous choirs and orchestras, I find it odd that so many groups seem to make no effort to make themselves known to the community. In fact finding information about some of the groups is extremely difficult.

From this thread it is apparent that some large groups do not have an entry on the UK Amateur Orchestras web site, nor do they have their own web sites. The AO site is just about the only central record of bands, ensembles, and orchestras. There is an associated FB page as well. It costs nothing to have your details listed on that site.

ABRSM has a list of groups as well and that includes choirs as well.

Some groups have their own Facebook pages, not all, and often the page's 'about' section has no information about rehearsal dates/times. How do groups expect people to get involved if finding the group is such a challenge?

Some groups have no web site or social media presence of their own at all. They rely on a local community web site to communicate. The problem with that approach is that it very probably won't come up in a search since the metadata tags on the site will be for the site itself, not people's posts on it. That means search engines are going to struggle to pull your entry out.

I fell foul of nomenclature as well because I searched for 'wind bands' and 'symphonic wind bands', I didn't include 'concert bands' and the search engine didn't pull them out.

There are it has to be said issues with search engines. Google is becoming unusable in many cases. It is so focused on monetising searches that the proper responses to the search can be buried after a pile of irrelevant 'results'.
 
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I find it odd that so many groups seem to make no effort to make themselves known to the community.
From my own experiences... I think the reason being was in your post...
committees
The orchestra I play with doesn't have a 'public' facebook page, there's a 'members page' that gets very little activity, but there's no public presence. That said we're at capacity as we struggle to find venues (churches) that can accommodate us all... on the other hand they won't look at larger venues, as we currently sell out the smaller ones.

I can see why there's no desire to take on the additional headache of larger venues, cost, and pressure to sell the seats.

I know people have enquired about joining and not even had the courtesy of a reply. :rolleyes:
 
From my own experiences... I think the reason being was in your post...

The orchestra I play with doesn't have a 'public' facebook page, there's a 'members page' that gets very little activity, but there's no public presence. That said we're at capacity as we struggle to find venues (churches) that can accommodate us all... on the other hand they won't look at larger venues, as we currently sell out the smaller ones.

I can see why there's no desire to take on the additional headache of larger venues, cost, and pressure to sell the seats.

I know people have enquired about joining and not even had the courtesy of a reply. :rolleyes:
Yes, some groups are somewhat hapless.
 
I guess with these things it tends to be one person organising things and they tend to focus on getting the band together and publicising gigs. Getting musicians in can be word-of-mouth, as usually one player will know a few more. Often teachers are involved and they can pull their students in, if they are up to scratch.
There used to be more school orchestras about but a lot of them have been hit by budget cuts.
Venues are getting harder to find with many pubs and such closing down - churches too.
The internet has changed too. When we had dial-up accounts we got free webspace. Now with broadband you usually have to pay and pay for someone to design the webpage. A lot of websites have moved onto social media and you often need to know what to look for to find it there. Here's the La'al Big Band page, for example.
 

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