Streetbands, Steelbands, Street Compositions
Ken’s work with streetbands and steelbands in the North East of England.
Heaton People’s Band / 10th Avenue Band / Hep Taxi
Ken moved to Chillingham Road Primary School in Heaton in 1986 as music coordinator and soon started a community band. Arts Council funding was raised for a set of steel pans which became the core of a carnival band format called Heaton People’s Band. Children from the school mixed with adults from family and the broader community. Their first outdoor gig was the North Shields Fish Quay Festival of 1988. Soon the band chose to have a different name: The 10th Avenue Band (named after the street upon which the school was sited. The first of a number of trips abroad was in 1989 to Rouen, in France, collaborating with Mona Lisa Klaxon. Hepi Taxi was a short lived splinter band. Ken left the MD role and leadership of the band in 1996, but was commissioned to write Tyne Times for and International Streetband Gathering hosted by 10th Avenue Band in 2005. The band continues…………
The Tone Rangers / Metro Gnomes and the National Streetband Festival 2000
In the run up to the 1990 National Streetband Festival hosted by Gateshead Arts and Libraries Ken ran a children and parents streetband The Tone Rangers which became known as the Metro Gnomes. They performed a repertoire of Geordie tunes and self composed pieces at the National Festival outside Caedmon Hall.
For the same festival Ken wrote ‘May Rant’ a piece for massed bands to play at the end of the May Day March from Gateshead and Newcastle’s Cattle Market to The Town Moor.
Piranha Panners and Newcastle All Stars Steel Orchestra
In his role as Newcastle schools’ Advisory Teacher for Primary Music, Ken established a steelband in the west of Newcastle to match the Chillingham Road Primary set in 1992. Based in Chapel House Middle School and practising on Saturday mornings a squad of 20 or so players became very proficient, so much so that more ambitious plans were hatched. In 1995 Ken was successful in submitting a bid for a double set of pans for an All Stars Steel Orchestra, two outreach sets, supplementary pans for Chillingham Road Primary and a transit mini bus and box trailer. The new orchestra met (and still meets) at West Denton Community Centre on Monday nights and became very successful playing at the More Mayor’s Mansion House, The Great North Run and many other festivals. A lively set of parents took over the management of the band, Ken moved on in 2005, and Louise Patrick took over the role of MD, (and has very successfully continued to develop the band to the present day). The outreach resource helped Sage Gateshead’s Comusica community music strand establish a band in Wooler Northumberland and a tradition of pan playing in Gosforth schools.
Spirit of Jazz Festival 2000
In the millennium year Ken was commissioned to write a composition for steel pans by Allerdale / Jazz North. Teenagers in Workington at Stainburn School, Cumbria played the new piece ‘Ska Reg’ at the Keswick Theatre alongside other ensembles working with jazz musicians including Keith Morris and trombonist Annie Whitehead.
Meze Mundo
Hear Meze Mundo play Ken’s ‘Cumbia Carnaval’.
‘The World Carnival Band’ started in 2004 with Ken leading as a Sage Gateshead initiative. An open access band designed to play on the street and specialising in world music its started with a number of adolescents and their parents and gradually grew into a performance band. After a two years they were prompted to become independent as a band raising their own finances out-with The Sage Gateshead around this time they named th band Meze Mundo. Ken led the band until a sabbatical year in 2008/9 when Rob Kitchen became MD. Ken returned to the band in a supporting role until 2022. The band continues.
Weardale Whackers 2002
Before The Sage Gateshead was built a team community musicians was recruited to establish community music projects across the North East. Under the name of Comusica, Ken was part of the team working in Weardale Co Durham and Wooler in Northumberland. They learned the foot percussion of clog and accompanied it with W African djembes.
Tyne Times 2003 and 2005
In 2005 Ken was commissioned to create a piece ‘Tyne Times’ for massed streetbands at an international streetband festival hosted by 10th Avenue Band. The narrative of the musical storytelling followed the Tyne from Tynehead in the Pennines through Gateshead (where the piece was performed on Millennium Square) to Tynemouth, it also had a historical journey from rural start to an industrial end point. 60 musicians learned their parts in a 2 hour workshop and then performed aided by audience participation.
The piece was revived in 2008 with songs added for choirs to work alongside local bands in the amphitheatre area outside Sage Gateshead.
Cutting Loose Festival Newton Aycliffe
From 2012 – 2015 Ken worked in Greenfield Community Arts School, Newton Aycliffe with secondary and primary feeder brass and wind instrumentalists to create a streetband for a community streetband for performances in the BRASS festival, collaborating with local bands (e.g. Jazz in My Pants).
Heaton Main Suite
In 2015 The Heaton Main Suite was composed for outdoor performance at the Ouseburn Festival, Byker, Newcastle. I commemorated the Heaton Pit Disaster of 1815. It featured songs from Richard Scott, Andrew Scott, Johnny Handle and Ken Patterson.
Ken’s Star and Shadow BRASS UNBOUND podcasts 2020 – 2021
Ken recorded four x 2 hour podcasts and a single 1 hour programme under the name ‘Brass Unbound’ given by Willy Houwen of Star and Shadow Cinema. The first two feature streetbands with a connection to the North East of England, local bands or friends of local bands. Items include: 10th Avenue Band, Meze Mundo, Kate Hancock from Chilli Road Band, Blast Furness, Rob Kitchen, Nik Alevroyianni, Lewis Wilkinson, Rachel Richman, Jack Courtney, Paul Miskin, Jean Laurie, Stroud Red Band, Will Embling of Crocodile Style and the Big Red Band, Laurence Ranson and Lysbet from Amsterdam’s Fanfare van de 1e Liefdesnacht and many more. The 3rd and 4th podcasts look at the history of the banners and brass bands of Durham Miners’ Gala, and the evolution of the Durham BRASS Festival. The 5th shorter podcast is called ‘Giving Folk the Horn’ where Ken chooses favourite folk tracks which feature brass within their arrangements.
Brass Unbound Podcast 3a
Brass Unbound Podcast 3b
Brass Unbound Giving Folk the Horn
Streetband Projects
Steelband development
Ken Patterson 