The brass band receives an annual grant
The Hafnarfjörður City Brass Band will receive one million krónur in annual funding from the city for the next five years. The aim is to support the band's regular activities and to promote brass band work and cultural life in Hafnarfjörður. The mayor and the chairman of the band signed the agreement in the band's presence, and they performed a piece. The atmosphere was excellent.
„This changes everything. The fund gives us predictability,“ says Finnbogi Óskarsson, the council's treasurer. „It means we can take more risks and think bigger than we have dared. We are really pleased about that,“ he says.
Important to cultural life
Mayor Valdimar Víðisson welcomes the formalisation of support for the Hafnarfjörður Brass Band in this way. „The band is an important part of our cultural life. The tradition of the band in Hafnarfjörður is long and remarkable. With this agreement, we are strengthening that legacy.“
Finnbogi says that the last time the band received a three-year grant, which was before Covid, they actually held a concert with Pollapönki.
„Normally, we buy ready-made sheet music for about 400,000 a year, or around 10-15,000 for each song, and we hold concerts. But with the grant, we can have a whole programme arranged. It cost just over two million for the Pollapönks concerts and with a grant like this, we can afford to hire someone to arrange it especially for us,“ says Finnbogi.
About 45 in the bugle band
Around 45 people practise regularly with the brass band, which meets once a week. „We rehearse at Tónkvísl, which is part of the Music School. We moved in there at the turn of the millennium and we get on well with the Music School,“ he says. The members are now between the ages of twenty and eighty.
„We laid our oldest member to rest a month ago; he was 78. We have men in their seventies with us, and as long as you're in good health, you can always play,“ he says. It's great to be able to join the brass band after graduating from music school and continue enjoying music. „Yes, you can keep playing for as long as you're breathing.“
But there is no grant without commitments! The Band will hold regular rehearsals and maintain an active programme of activities during the term of the agreement. It will perform at events organised by the City of Hafnarfjörður or in collaboration with the city's Cultural and Tourism Committee. There are many projects, although most people know the Band best from the parade on National Day.
„Yes, the 17th of June would be dull without the brass band,“ says Finnbogi. „There are 700 children in the music school and they are all learning something. Many are learning a wind instrument and are in the brass band. It would be a shame if people had no platform to continue playing when they leave school. It's a fantastic hobby.“
Congratulations everyone. We will enjoy it.
The long history of the brass band
The brass band has a long history here in Hafnarfjörður. Brass band playing was first established in Hafnarfjörður in 1890. The activity was sporadic in the early years and, as described on the band's website, the playing of the bugle was discontinued entirely in 1895, remaining so until 1908.
„That year, the Hafnarfjörður town council received a gift of several old bugles and, with an added grant of 30 kr., old bugle scraps were made into a new bugle band, which was founded on 23 November 1909. That band disbanded in 1912. Several attempts were then made until the Hafnarfjörður Brass Band was founded in January 1950.
