Deputy conductor welcomed

The Ringwood and Burley Band is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Block BA, LRAM, LGSM as the band's deputy conductor.

Steve studied trumpet and composition at the Royal Academy of Music before embarking on a career of teaching music in secondary schools. After teaching for 30 years in North London, West London and the West Midlands, he became music adviser for the London Borough of Enfield for eight years. In 2005, Steve took early retirement and continued his work as an independent consultant.

Alongside his teaching career, Steve has conducted amateur groups, including operatic and choral societies, and youth and adult orchestras, and also composed and arranged for many of his groups. He has had commissioned works performed at Birmingham Town Hall, the Barbican Concert Hall in London, and at Dudley Castle in the presence of HM The Queen.

Most of Steve’s brass playing and teaching has been on trumpet, but since moving down to Bournemouth in 2010 he has taken up the cornet again, and now plays Soprano Cornet with Ringwood & Burley Band as well as Christchurch U3A Vintage Brass.

Steve is married to Cindy, and they have a 27-year-old daughter who also teaches music.

Steve is absolutely delighted to be appointed as deputy conductor to Ringwood & Burley. He feels he can learn from the wealth of experience that the band members have, and especially from their conductor Bernard Lawson. Steve looks forward to a happy conducting, playing and social relationship with them all.

Bernard Lawson the band's musical director said, "I am delighted to welcome Steve Block as deputy conductor of the Ringwood & Burley Band. I am fortunate to have a man of his musical and personal stature to work along side me. As a result of the the new leadership team I am confident that the band's good progress of recent months will develop at an even greater rate."