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Conductor Biography
Our musical director is Eric Longford Jessop. Here is Eric's musical story in his own words:
I was born in Dodworth in 1944 to a musical family. At the age of seven I applied through my father for a cornet at the local village band. There were none available so my mother suggested I take piano lessons until one became free. After a few months I acquired an old cornet via my brother when his was replaced at the band. I was now learning piano and cornet. Within a few weeks I was attracted to an old brass trombone which my tutor had. Consequently I wanted to learn that also, thus starting the fever of becoming a multi-instrumentalist. I progressed rapidly through the ranks at Dodworth Band and was soon playing Soprano Cornet: my second favourite instrument. The first being the baton.
I was often, as a youngster, asked to take the band as a stand-in for the conductor when he had to go to work on the late shift. I caught the bug and was soon passing on my acquired skills by way of teaching others less able than myself. I took a small band to a contest at the age of 16 and, whilst we won nothing, I took heart from the encouraging remarks by the adjudicator Ernest Appleyard.
My reputation as a soprano player was soon well-known and I was asked to play with some of the local bands on many occasions. I also joined the Barnsley Light Orchestra until its demise in the late seventies. Throughout this time my dearest desire was to conduct and in 1976 I was asked to reform an old defunct band at Cawthorne. After an epic struggle I managed to get them to a reasonable lower section standard. However my efforts were rewarded by being dismissed for being too enthusiastic! Their words were "We are releasing you to enable a more mature band to take advantage of your obvious enthusiasm".
After this I conducted several bands in the area, and studied harmony and counterpoint for a while, before settling down to playing once more with my own village band. I have the distinction of having played and/or conducted every band on the Barnsley area, (except Grimethorpe - they haven't asked me yet). In 1991 I was asked to play with Rockingham Colliery band and as time went by I was left with another band to hold together.
During this period Dodworth Band became defunct and I decided to form a completely new band teaching the young people of the village to play so that one of the oldest bands in the country (est 1835) would not die. A marathon task, but it was achieved. After what was wrongly diagnosed as a heart attack, I reluctantly gave up the conductorship in 2004 after a long, but happy struggle. In 2006/7 I had a book published about Brass Bands called 'Barnsley Brass' (available from Amazon), and I am currently awaiting the printing of my second book on the subject. I spend most of my time these days writing and arranging music: an occupation I enjoy very much.
Between 2005 and 2008 I played 2nd trumpet for the Mike Yates Big Band.
Eric
