About Alum Creek Music
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Since moving to the USA in 1996 with his wife Audrey, and daughters Debbie and Katie, he has been delighted to receive a number of invitations to return to Britain to conduct and, following an appearance with Newtongrange Band, one commentator wrote "a welcome return to the UK of a conductor of proven 24 carat class" (Iwan Fox, www.4barsrest.com). Keith was also privileged to be featured in a full-length article in the international magazine, The Brass Herald, in October 2017.
Each of the bands he has directed has established an outstanding reputation for their concert presentations and these have been enhanced by the inclusion of some of Keith's brass band arrangements. While living in England he was happy to accept invitations to conduct at various locations around Europe and for a period he was principal guest conductor of Switzerland's Brass Band Fribourg.
Shortly after Keith's arrival in the USA the Brass Band Of The Western Reserve came into existence and rapidly established a fine reputation for its concert performances and CD recordings. Keith retired from the band in the Summer of 2021 and is now their Music Director Emeritus.
Keith has also enjoyed several guest appearances in both USA and Canada and for a successful period was principal guest conductor of St Louis Brass Band. While competitions are less prominent in the USA than in Britain he has continued his previous success by conducting the first-placed band on 5 occasions in different sections of the North American Brass Band Championships. He is regularly in demand to adjudicate at the North American Championships where he is able to make use of his experience as a regularly-featured adjudicator around Britain and Europe.
Keith tried his hand at brass band orchestration while still in high school and this aspect of banding has continued to hold his attention. Having the opportunity to play his arrangements with the bands he is directing is an obvious advantage. Indeed many of his arrangements have been inspired by the needs of his bands. His arrangements are featured regularly in the programmes of many bands around the world.
Alum Creek Music has been formed to enable an efficient release of Dr Keith M Wilkinson's arrangements. In addition to the titles listed here, Keith has arrangements with several other publishers in Britain, Switzerland and USA. Over the years some of his arrangements have been used as test pieces in major brass band championships.
Keith has been successfully directing brass bands for around 50 years! He commenced regularly conducting brass bands while he was a student at the University Of Manchester and following two enjoyable periods directing Salvation Army bands he entered the highly competitive British brass band contesting scene in the Fall of 1976. In the following 20 years he enjoyed an enormous amount of success, including having the privilege of directing the first-placed band in more than 40 contests. In several of these competitions upwards of 20 bands would have been performing. The majority of these successes were with his own band, the GUS Band and later the William Davis Band, while some were as a guest conductor, primarily with Scotland's Newtongrange Band.