THEY'RE solid brass, gold class, and Yorkshire proud through and through. Those champions of champion brass players, the Black Dyke Band, were back in town for another of the Wessex Heartbeat charity fundraising Best of Brass concerts which, despite three of its founding members having passed away in the previous year, seems assured of continuing through its obvious popular support.

And while the claim of their conductor Nicholas Childs, to have brought the sunshine with them from up North on Saturday was, presumably, a northern joke, the temperature was certainly raised with what was a splendidly lively and rousing programme.

Among the more familiar works was Shostokovich's rapturous Festival Overture, Stravinsky's swirling Firebird finale, and When The Saints Go Marching In - or rather Swinging In, with an inspired free flowing arrangement by Paul Duffy on soprano cornet.

More recent works included part of the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins' powerful anti-war 'Mass', The Armed Man, Cornishman Goff Richards' tenor horn solo, Demelza, beautifully delivered by Sheona White, and Sandy Smith's Jewish Klezmer-style Klezmorim provided a showcase for Joseph Cook's wonderfully wayward rasping tuba.

For a final flourish, the band ended with the stirring Immortal, by their Composer in Association, Paul Lovatt Cooper, dedicated to Black Dyke's own illustrious history.