Edward Gregson on bands’ obsession with contesting, redressing the balance and the Ivors Awards | episode 6

Over the past 50 years, the composer Edward Gregson has made a huge contribution to the brass band repertoire. Although his works for band only account for around 25 per cent of his compositions, it’s a world about which Edward has always been very passionate.

Edward also feels the time has come for brass bands to think seriously about what they want to be. Coming up, he chats about what he calls ‘the obsession with contesting’ and how it’s time to rebalance our thinking in order to ensure that bands can rightly be taken seriously in the wider musical world.

Edward began by giving his reaction to the news that the brass and wind band category has been omitted in the latest call for submissions from the Ivors Composer Awards.