End of Year Celebration, Concert and Awards 2024

At our End of Year Concert, we celebrated our three bands: Hyde Street Brass Class, Hyde Street Junior Band, and Hyde Street Youth Band.

Hyde Street Brass Class is where our newest players begin their brass and percussion journey! Their MD, Caitlin Taylor has nurtured these enthusiastic youngsters and they have made extraordinary progress this year and are playing so well as a group!

Hyde Street Brass Class Awards 2024:

Certificates of Achievement
– Estelle, Max, Veronica, Jordan, Harrison

The following players will be welcomed into Hyde Street Junior Band for 2025:
– Peter, Jimmy, Charlie, Jacob and Lucia

Congratulations all, we are very proud and are looking forward to the wonderful year ahead and thank you Caitlin. We welcome any new players would like to join, we have all kinds of instruments available!

Hyde Street Junior Band under the dedicated batons of Andrew Wilson and Bethany Mc Bethany McAuliffe-D’Rozario have had an amazing year to celebrate! Our middle band is where our developing players further their musicianship and hone their craft, and players have the opportunity to play a second instrument and learn from our experienced young players. The Junior Band members with junior members of Hyde Street Youth Band members were National and State Junior B grade champions for the second year in a row. As a result of this extraordinary effort and remarkable achievement, they will now compete as Victoria’s only Junior A Grade Brass Band at the Australian National Band Championships in Melbourne in 2025!

Hyde Street Junior Band Awards 2024:

Encouragement Certificates
– Jasper McKeown
– Charlie Trail
– Dane Stockman

Encouragement Award
– Jordan Doidge

Musicianship Award
– Billy Wilson

Conductors Award
– Mia Headlam

And here’s what these awards are for:
Conductors (perpetual) – remarkable for skills/qualities
Musicianship – impressive emerging musical talent
Encouragement – persistence, determination and substantial improvement

Hyde Street Youth Band under the extraordinary direction of Phillipa Edwards OAM has had an absolute cracker of a year in 2024 – from Adelaide, Alpine Brass, the Grand Final Parade, to ANZAC Day and beyond! The young musicians have grown in musicianship and maturity, and continue to build a strong and encouraging community of players united in their commitment to mastering their instruments, each other and to their band – community, mastery, joy! After 2 years of placing first in Open D Grade at the Australian National Band Championships in 2023 and 2024, HSYB stepped up into Open C Grade for the first time at the State Championships in 2nd place by 1 point! And 9 Junior State Solo Champions and 9 place getters, as well as 10 National Solo champions and 10 place getters in 2024 alone. There is great excitement for what 2025 brings.

Hyde Street Youth Band Awards 2024:

Encouragement Awards
– Izzi Smith
– Dane Stockman

Musicianship Award
– Atticus Lawson

Golden Drumsticks Award
– Will Lawrence

Conductors Award
– PJ Butterfield

Bill Shea Award
– Fergus Moorhouse

If you look carefully across the 3 bands you might spot some of the 16 new players that have joined Hyde Street Youth Band this year and the newly made Golden Drumsticks Award (hand-crafted glass by Turiya Orme and woodwork by Geoffrey Irvin) to honour our extraordinary percussionists.

Many thanks to the Spotswood Kingsville RSL for making your wonderful venue available, and to the City of Maribyrnong for your support.

Photo credit: Linda Ely David Moorhouse and Geoffrey Irvin