Grimethorpe Colliery Band are saddened to hear of the passing of Mr Elgar Howarth, one of the most significant musical figures in its history.
Born in 1935 and educated in the 1950s at the University of Manchester and Royal Manchester College of Music, he went on to have a hugely successful and influential career in orchestral and operatic music circles, and was widely regarded as a pioneer of post-war brass band music. His influence on Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and the entire brass band music scene, is unrivalled.
Appointed as the band’s Professional Conductor and Musical Advisor in 1972, paired with the relative youth of Grimethorpe at the time, saw the partnership break with tradition and enable them to attract some of the world’s leading composers of the time.
Upon first hearing Grimethorpe Mr Howarth said, “the thing which interests me most about brass bands is the potential offered to composers of our time by the virtuoso playing element present in a band such as Grimethorpe. I hope to be able to stimulate a new repertoire for bands and find the atmosphere and enthusiasm at Grimethorpe stimulating and necessary for an exploration of advanced 20th Century music, all combined of course with the normal musical interests of the traditional brass band.”
The partnership blossomed and led to historic and groundbreaking concert, contest, festival, touring and recording projects the likes of which are widely regarded to have shaped the direction of the brass band movement. His light entertainment concert repertoire, under the pseudonym W. Hogarth Lear, still capture audiences to this day.
It is very touching to read the numerous tributes which have flooded social media in recent days, none with a more fitting tribute to Mr Howarth than that of our long serving former Principal Cornet player Alan Morrison who said “Very rarely does one person have an immediate impact on you… But I was taken aback at the sheer towering presence, musical aura and hushed respect that was in the room when he arrived… He could draw things out of the band that no-one else could, sometimes with just the raising of an eyebrow or a snarl that would have so much meaning.”
Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr Howarth’s family at this very difficult time.