Queen Victoria’s Consort uses popular Victorian composers, writers and themes of the era to create concerts that are both correct to the time period and fun and accessible to audiences of the current day. It is wonderful to be able to play music composed by Albert the Prince Consort as so much of his work survives and is well suited to arrangement for brass. We also have a wealth of music composed by Sullivan for the popular operetta, although this was mainly intended for voice the characterful nature of his composition again lends itself to be performed by a brass ensemble or featured soloist.

Queen Victoria did meet Charles Dickens towards the end of his life and we know he presented her with a bound (in Moroccan red and gold leather) complete edition of his works. We have used a Dickens theme for past Christmas concerts and will be working on a musically punctuated version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ with an actor starting Christmas 2018.

Queen Victoria was also one of the first Monarchs to visit many parts of the United Kingdom as well as abroad, travel being much easier during and after the industrial revolution. Village and town bands would have played popular ‘Ditties’ of the day for her arrival. One such link to my own early education at a small village primary school in Bedfordshire is that the Village decided to change their (perhaps rather unfortunate) name of Shitlington to Shillington for Victoria’s visit. Resplendent with a more appropriate name and the village band playing on arrival the Queen was spared potential Blushes.