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Muse hits the right note

By matching, pound for pound, funds raised at a series of concerts in and around Manchester, Muse is helping the 2nd Rossendale Scout Group Band raise money to refurbish its HQ building in the Lancashire mill town of Bacup.

The HQ building, formerly a school building for St John’s Church, was built in 1829 on the banks of the River Irwell and is undergoing a major refurbishment so far costing upwards of £200,000.  The band is currently £60,000 short of the total needed to complete refurbishment works to current building regulations.

In 1965 the 2nd Rossendale Scout Group Band started as a drum and pipe band but, during the 1970s, changed its format to brass band instrumentation and has never looked back.   There are in fact three bands at the group - training, junior and senior.  The training and junior band members practice and attend lessons every Saturday morning.  Each pupil is provided with a free instrument and is taught by a member of the senior band.

All the players are part of the one scout group based at their Burnley Road headquarters in Bacup.  The band performs regularly across the north of England and in recent times has performed with the Black Dyke, Fodens, Grimethorpe Colliery and Brighouse & Rastrick bands as well as at Windsor Castle for the Queen.

The band has also performed in many of the finest concert halls including the Bridgewater Hall and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the O2 Arena in London and Cologne Cathedral.  In May 2011, it is booked to play with the Salvation Army’s International Staff Band.

The Scout Group celebrates its centenary in 2010 and, to mark the occasion, the band will tour Cornwall and Somerset in the summer of 2010.