Southdowns Concert Band offer A Christmas Celebration

The concert will be on Friday, December 15 at 7.30pm at St Paul’s Church, Chichester, PO19 6FT, with tickets adults £10, children under 12 free, available from St Paul’s Office, Sage House Tangmere and www.Ticketsource.co.uk/southdownsconcertband

The concert is a fund-raiser for Sage House – The Door to Dementia Support. Sage House is a bespoke, modern and functional community hub which brings local dementia support services together under one roof, providing the latest support, information, advice and activities to those living with dementia and their families.

Brenda Bailey, concert secretary with the band, said: “We have done a concert for them previously, a fund-raiser maybe two or three years ago. We try to help various local charities. In the summer we did one for Snowdrop. We're trying to keep it local rather than the big national charities and we really want to support the great work that they do at Sage House.

“It will be jolly Christmas music, Christmas Overture, Christmas on Broadway, 100 Per Cent Christmas, and we are doing A Christmas Festival. We're also doing Bohemian Rhapsody which is the only song that has been number one at Christmas twice. There are a number of items that we're doing with the choir. Some of it will be joint, some of it will be just us and some of it will be just them.”

It is the first Christmas concert with the band for their new conductor Kirsty Sanders. Kirsty grew up in Portsmouth and at the age of seven she began playing the clarinet and then later took up the saxophone. She played in several local wind bands, including Highbury Area Band and Portsmouth Youth Jazz Band. In 2005, after gaining her AS Levels, Kirsty joined the Royal Marines Band Service as a clarinet and violin player. Since completing training in 2008, Kirsty has been drafted to RM Band Portsmouth (Royal Band), RM Band Collingwood, RM Band Lympstone and RM Band Plymouth. Kirsty has also achieved her BMus (Hons) degree.