| Jim McQuade - Director of Music |
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Jim has been with the band since its formation in 1998 and has developed the group into one of the finest wind bands in Lincolnshire.
He joined the Royal Air Force in 1974 as a Euphonium player and served with the Band of the RAF Germany and the RAF College Band based at RAF Cranwell near Sleaford. He travelled extensively with both bands and saw active service during the first Gulf War. He was awarded an AOCs Commendation for his work within Royal Air Force Music in the New Years Honours List in 1986.
On his retirement from the RAF he kept his interest in music as a music teacher and took on the role of Head of Department at the Aveland High School in Billingborough. Jim transformed a failing department into one of the best in the school and he was appointed as an Advanced Skills teacher in 2003. |
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His teaching skills have been rewarded on a number of occasions when he was awarded various prizes and awards, notably the East Midland Teacher of the Year awarded by the Teaching Awards Trust.
Jim was appointed as a regional judge for the Teaching Awards Trust in 2003 and 2004 and is now a Fellow of the Trust. He organised music summer schools at The Aveland High School in 2002 and 2003 and is now actively involved in working to give young people a good quality musical experience and helps to deliver the Wider Opportunies Scheme in the Boston area.
Jim has led the Sleaford Concert Band since 1998 during which time the band has performed in Marquette Les Lille, Scarborough, Heckington Show, Waddington Air Show and at numerous local events in and around Sleaford. He still plays in bands and over the past 20 years has conducted The Lincoln Hospitals Band, The Newark and Sherwood Concert Band, The Lincolnshire Concert Band and Foss Dyke Band.
Jim now travels to schools in South Lincolnshire to help develop their musical education. |
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| Ken Garfield - Training Band Co-ordinator |
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Ken is an original member of the Sleaford Concert Band, which was formed in 1998, and was appointed conductor of the Training Band when it was launched in 1999.
Ken began his musical career learning to play the recorder at the tender age of 5. This led onto taking up the clarinet and piano in the years that followed.
His main passion is, and always will be the recorder, having won numerous music competitions and giving many solo recitals. He endeavours to promote the recorder as a “proper musical instrument” in its own right, rather than just a stepping stone on which people use to move onto so called “real instruments”. Ken is also a member of the Society of Recorder Players of Great Britain and was awarded his Recorder DipABRSM in Performance in July 2007. |
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Ken has conducted the Training Band since its formation in 1999. His own personal style in conducting and encouragement to the players is always evident, with the emphasis being on fun when playing. The band gives one concert a year, usually in the summer, as they have done at the Heckington Show over the past few years.
Ken’s musical career so far has been as wide in range as could be probably possible. From early music on the recorder, playing clarinet with the Lincolnshire Youth Orchestra in his youth and with the Sleaford Concert Band now to playing pennywhistle with the group “The Band from County Hell”. And so much more in between, the list is endless, just ask him!
If all this wasn’t enough Ken is at this time studying for his BA (Hons) degree in Education Studies and Music at Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln.
Ken’s passion for music is born out in one of his favourite music quotes:
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
Friedrich Nietzsche |
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