Thanks once again to the tireless organisation of Jenny Cox, this year’s meeting of the National Concertina Band was as always a wonderful way of spending a weekend. The sound of 30-odd concertinas playing parts together is at once a marvellous, sonorous, absurd, and joyful noise - and one that can almost certainly only be heard at the Hawkwood weekends.

The standard this year, was, I think we all agreed, higher than ever before; as an ensemble the band has certainly made great musical strides over the four years that I’ve been going.

Directorship duties of the main band were taken once again by Steve Ellis and Dave Townsend, while Steve, Dave and I each led the smaller group activities on the Saturday afternoon.

Please note: to conserve space and bandwidth I’ve now removed these recordings; if you’d like to hear them please contact me via the “Contact” form on this site.