If there is one singularly striking factor about Unibrass, it is the astonishing achievement of current Chairman, Alexander Parker, and his team in building an event as successful as Unibrass has become within a period of just five short years.

Since the inaugural event at Lancaster University in 2011, Unibrass has become a February landmark in the banding calendar, forming a unique and innovative link between mainstream banding, and the young people of a new and vital brass band generation.

Yet it is also an achievement that can be broken down into several component factors. Although the event will transfer to York University next year, the Butterworth Hall at Warwick University Arts Centre, an auditorium favoured as a recording venue by Simon Rattle during his tenure with the CBSO, is a concert hall that could provide a fine venue for any major contest. Backed up by excellent facilities, ease of access and a legion of student helpers, including a host of audio/visual specialists who provided a live steam throughout the day that peaked at over 8,000 visits, Unibrass is a package that impresses on every level.

In terms of the efforts that have gone into its funding alone, there are surely lessons to be learnt from the young team that has given of its time so freely to create such a stimulating contesting experience.

Perhaps more importantly still, however, is the university brass band culture that has been furthered by the very existence of the contest. With workshops running throughout the day led by players of the stature of Owen Farr and Richard Marshall, and a record entry of 19 bands this year (the original quota of 17 bands was filled in less than six minutes) that is up by seven bands on the first two Unibrass events of 2011 and 2012, this contest has become a telling landmark in its own right. It was a field of bands that certainly gave adjudicators, Frank Renton and Russell Gray, plenty to think about ahead of Frank Renton’s complimentary pre-results summing up.

For the University of Manchester Brass Band, directed with exuberant energy and inspiration by James Keirle, victory proved to be sweet indeed as the band deservedly sealed the ‘double’ on the back of its triumph under Jonathan Evans in 2015. Landing a plumb pre-draw of 15, Manchester’s Blue-themed programme made an immediate impact as soloists lined-up across the front of the stage for Mnozil Brass star, Thomas Gansch’s, Blue.

It was a statement of musical intent that oozed confidence, panache and swagger, whilst underlining the fact that the band is as comfortable with the jazz idiom as it is with core repertoire. As if to prove the point, the sensitive treatment of the hymn Deep Blue (Nearer My God To Thee) by Lowell Mason - a “composer that was to 19th Century hymn tune writing what Sousa was to the march - was delivered with a glowing, yet emotionally engaging simplicity and in marked contrast to Ben Hale’s exceptional jazz trumpet technique in Maynard Ferguson’s Everybody Loves the Blues. It was a performance that saw him carry off the Solo Prize to wild acclaim from the audience.

If there was a risk in Manchester’s programme, it came in the form of...

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Photo: Manchester University Band