The national Field Band Foundation NPC was founded in 1997
to use the global performance band concept in bringing focused life-skills
training to young people in areas of disadvantage.
On February 20, the sounds of brass, percussion, marimbas
and steel drums, with accompanying flash of flags and colourful costume, will
reverberate through Soweto when the Field Band Foundation holds its bi-annual
national championships at the Nike Football Training Centre.
South Africa’s 12 top performance field bands, each with 125
members, will put on long-rehearsed displays of closely choreographed music,
dance and band movement before local and international judges, and the public.
Many field band players, including those from KZN’s popular PG
Bison Buccaneers, are among the more than 40,000 youngsters who have gone
through the Field Band Foundation programme, 23,800 for a minimum of three
years, in 79,600 years of developmental training.
The Field Band Academy, formerly situated at Oakford near
Verulam outside Durban and now located in Johannesburg, is the Foundation’s
training and capacity-building institution that enhances the skills of
operational leaders and other talented youngsters of high potential from across
the country.
The Foundation currently has more than 6,500 members in 48
bands and receives significant corporate support. State support comes through
the Department of Arts & Culture, and international support primarily
through partners in Norway, Flanders, and the US.
The
Field Band Foundation Championships will take place on February 20 at
the Nike Football Training
Centre on the corner of Mokoena and Chris Hani (“Old Potch”)
Streets in Klipspruit, Soweto. (M68 Klipspruit Soweto Gauteng 1837, M68,
Soweto, 1837).
The championships will be opened by a representative of the office of Deputy
Minister of Arts and Culture Ms. Rejoice Mabudafhasi, and by Phillip Barton,
CEO of the Field Band Foundation’s primary supporter, De Beers Consolidated
Mines. The championships will run from 09h30 to 13h30 and members
of the public are invited to attend at no cost.
For more information on the Field Band Foundation visit (www.fieldband.org.za)
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