About

Hi! I’m Ali, a tenor horn playing mum to three teenagers and wife to long suffering sop player, David. I also have the privilege of Chairing the fantastic team we have here at Brass for Good and previously at LtLMB. 

I have been involved in brass banding for a relatively short period of time, starting my brass music making as a French horn player back in school, and only having a couple of years of tenor horn playing under my belt at uni before taking a very long break due to work, and then family commitments. I returned to the band room in 2021 when I was invited to join the City of Birmingham Brass Band by my son’s music teacher, and CBBB MD, Saphran Ali. Life has not been the same since! 

Never one to do things by halves, I threw myself straight in, getting stuck in wherever I could be of use. And that, my friends, is how I find myself here! 

Early 2022, fellow CBBB horn player and serving police officer Phil Hadley, announced to the band that he’d had an idea. He wanted to take a band to the Lake District, have them play in a cave, climb a mountain over night, play hymns, come back down at first light, and then play a concert Saturday lunch time as part of the police event Light the Lakes. I thought he’d lost his mind, told him I’d come along on the Saturday to support but there was no chance anyone was getting me up any mountain in the middle of the night! Before I knew it I was helping to laminate march cards, finding players to fill empty seats and, you guessed it, not only did he get me up that mountain but somehow I found myself gearing up to do it all again the following year! 

Turns out Light the Lakes Massed Band was the banding event the banding community had been waiting for, and what started as a group of about 20 players in year one turned into almost 100 by year four, attracting musicians from all over the country. We realised that in order for Light the Lakes to remain the incredibly special, and intimate, policing event that they had built and nurtured over many years, and for us to continue to grow into an official brass banding event worthy of a regular spot on the banding calendar, we needed a new approach.  

As we embark on this new adventure, we’re so excited to be partnered with the Care of Police Survivors (COPS), a wonderful charity that supports the families of police officers who have lost their lives serving their communities. We will return to the Lake District this June where, with the support of both the Lakes Parish Council and Westmorland and Furness Council, we will host the first Brass for Good fundraising weekend in Ambleside, and start making noise for a good cause. 

Oh, and you can still climb a mountain over night if you want too!