UCB rehearsing hard for world premiere

The band has spent this year collaborating with Emily Hazrati, a young up-and-coming composer.

Together they have created Dawn, Wisdom, inspired by the landscape around Uckfield.

It will be performed publicly for the first time at Holy Cross Church, at 7.30pm on Saturday 26 October 2024.

Emily, described by BBC Radio 3 as a rising star composer, has written for the Royal Opera House, BBC Singers and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Dawn, Wisdom is her first composition for brass band. She was paired with Uckfield Concert Brass as part of the Adopt a Music Creator programme, organised by the musicians’ organisation, Making Music.

The first movement of the piece imagines a mysterious dawn rising over the river Uck, on a calm and hazy morning in autumn.

The middle movement is inspired by flashes of morning sunlight catching the surrounding hills of the South Downs and the Weald.

The final movement is lively and energetic as it looks forward to the start of a new day.

Emily said the idea behind the composition came from the name Uckfield, possibly meaning ‘open land of a man called Ucca’. She said Ucca is a pet form of the Anglo Saxon name ‘Uhtraed’, meaning ‘dawn-wisdom’.