Band History

It is commonly accepted that the City of Perth Band commenced life in 1898 as the Perth Federal Band, later going through a change of name to the Perth City Band in about 1905 and finally to its present name to align with the City of Perth in about 1970 when the City of Perth assisted the band to erect a purpose built band room in Robertson Park, Northbridge.

The band lost this venue in 1999 with the break up of the Perth City Council whereby the Band room fell within the Town of Vincent’s boundary. Once again the City Council came to the Band’s assistance by enabling a new band room to be erected in Queens Gardens East Perth. It is named after Sir Charles Court, a former Patron of the band for 25 years, without whose assistance the project would never have been brought to fruition.

City of Perth Brass Band

The band commenced as, and still maintains, a brass band.

Harry Piper with parents and brothers came from The Latrobe Federal Band in Tasmania in 1895 and is credited with forming the original band from the nucleus of a band he formed at the Perth Wesley Church. Twice in its long life the band has been employed as a Regimental Army Band for Citizens Military Units in addition to its main function as a not for profit Community Band. Firstly in the very early 1900’s and again just prior to the Second World War.

Under many distinguished and long serving Conductors the band enjoyed success in competition against other Brass Bands at many mainly West Australian and W.A. based regional contests but ceased competition after 1991 to concentrate on Concert Programs for public performance. The Band continues to accept engagements in Perth and other Centres whilst endeavouring to organise high calibre Concerts within the City of Perth and elsewhere both in its own right and in collaboration with other organisations.

City of Perth Concert Band

The Concert band grew out of a junior training band which commenced operations in July 1994 after concerns had been expressed at the low numbers of school music program graduates continuing to play music once school commitments had ceased. The original thrust was aimed at brass instrument players. This developed into a stand alone mixed age Concert Band in 1996 in order to align its instrumental format with the educational music programs. Like the Brass Band, the Concert Band accepts community engagements whilst developing Concert Programs suitable for presentation in its own right or in collaboration with other organisations.

City of Perth Swing Band

The Swing band grew out of the Concert band in 2008 after they performed a jazzy piece at a concert and found they wanted to do more of the same! The Swing band is only a small, 15-person subset of the Concert band, with their main material being, you guessed it, swing! Since 2008, the Swing band has continued to grow, and now generally performs at all concerts the Concert band is involved with.