Gettin' brassy

One of the tenants on the commercial floor of the St. George was the NZ Brass Band Association, and I had become interested in Sousa's tour of NZ back in the 1910s, with the view to perhaps incorporating it into the plot of a film script I was mulling in my head, about my maternal grandmother, who lived in Wellington at that time.

The lady in the Brass Band office was very helpful, and through her I learned of a brass band concert in the nearby city of Lower Hutt. Brass bands are common not just in the cities but in the rural towns of NZ, and band rotundas are still common. The magazine I saw a few days later just happened to be using brass instruments in its cover photo.Read more