To celebrate 70 years of service to the community, the Somerset Brigade Band will be holding its annual music festival.

The music festival will take place on Saturday, February 26 at 7.30 p.m. at St. James Church Hall in Somerset. The band will also be releasing a CD.

The band has very strong ties to the Sandys community and in its capacity as parish band, are often requested to perform for church functions -- for example on Remembrance Day and wedding ceremonies, the Girl Guides Association, the Boy Scouts Association, the Sea Cadets and fill in for the Bermuda Regiment when it is otherwise engaged.

The music festival under the patronage of Mr. Russell (Risky) Robinson, the last founding member of the band, will be featuring the Bermuda Regiment Band, Ms Toni Robinson, Bermuda Conservatory School of Music, String Students as well as the Somerset Brigade Band.

Seventy years after it was formed, the band has held together despite the decline of local bands in Bermuda.

Alan Tucker, a former band director for over 30 years, said: "The success is partly due to people being trained in school overseas and feeling the urge to return and play for the band and events such as Heritage Day which sometimes attract band members. As a result of our participation in the Millennium Night Parade we attracted a trombone player to the band.'' Mr. Tucker explained that the heyday of the band was in the 1930s, when it was led by founding members who included Arthur Knight, Fred Tankard, Percival Ratteray, Vivian Richards, Clifton Robinson, Cecil Gilbert, James Morrisey and Claude White and Kingsford Cholmondeley.

The band continues to fill a community need as it did when it was founded in December, 1929 when the two Somerset Orchestras were asked if they could supply music to march the Shepherd's Society on Christmas morning. The group came together to perform that day and were so satisfied with the results that after some discussion they thought it would be a good idea to form a band.

They obtained permission to meet in the Young Men's Clubs Room, situated on Church Hill. The meeting took place there and the Somerset Brigade Band was formed. In 1969 the Band hall was built at St. James Church Hall and is now owned by the Band, the only one on the Island to do so.

The Band raises funds through events such as Fish Friday, which is held every third Friday of the month when the Sandys community is invited to come and eat fish which Mr. Tucker often cooks and prepares.

The Brigade has 30 playing members ranging in age from ten to 65, a third of whom are girls. Apart from participating in events such as "Beat The Retreat'' ceremony in Somerset and Dockyard, it has performed in overseas events such as the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade in 1990 and this year it will be performing in the Burlington Sound of Music Parade, in Burlington Ontario, Canada and at three other concerts in the Toronto area.