East London Community Band celebrates 50 years of community music-making with ELCBFest, a free community music festival, in partnership with St Dunstan’s.

2024 marks a milestone year for the East London Community Band as they celebrate their 50th anniversary. Throughout the year, they’ve planned a programme of events in the community including ELCBFest, their free one-day festival in the grounds of St Dunstan’s Church, Stepney on Saturday 8 June 2024.

Billed as a ‘mini-Glastonbury’ open to the whole community, the all-day event features performances by ELCB ensembles showcasing their Percussion, Jazz, Concert Band, Big Band, and Early Music groups. The festival is an opportunity to build connections within the community and across musical groups and they’re proud to be hosting guest groups including Corsican Brass, Udichi Bengali Dance and East London Children’s Choir amongst others.

ELCBFest also has an outreach and recruitment objective through the ‘Make Some Noise’ children’s area. Young people are invited to try out percussion with a view to joining the subsidised percussion group in September and embark on their music-making journey through East London Community Band.

In addition to the musical programme ELCBFest includes:
A community ‘bring what you can’ shared lunch with St Dunstan’s, children’s games, a Pimm’s counter from The Peacock freehouse, Blue Daisy coffee stall, food stalls, ‘social media photo opp’ area, ELCB information and merchandise stall, and local community group stalls.