For over a century, the Telephone City Music Society (TCMS), has been entertaining the community by bringing them closer to the joy of live music.
Tracy Boyes, who has been president of the society for close to four years, explained the society’s history.
“It started out with the veterans coming back from World War I…they would get together and play, doing special events like parades. And [the band] was originally part of the Legion in Brantford, and then it eventually became the Telephone City Music Society…it’s been around since 1919, in some form or another,” noted Boyes.
TCMS, which has been led by musical director/conductor Josh Crouch for a number of years, has made a resurgence in popularity in the community, being involved in many events.
“We hold regular practices [and] usually take the summers off, but this year, we’ve been so busy with events that we are playing through the summer which is new for us [as] we’ve just gotten a lot bigger and people have shown more interest in what we do, which is great,” Boyes said. “For the main performance, we do the Remembrance Day service at the Brantford Cenotaph which we’ve done every year, except for two years since the band was established. We have done Christmas concerts [and] have played at nursing homes in Brantford and in Paris. And we have done a concert at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind, for the past two years. We will also be participating in the 150th anniversary celebrations for the Bell Homestead by playing there on July 27 and at Lions Park on July 28.”
Recently, the TCMS has also made efforts to participate in band festivals.
“This year our band went to Guelph and participated in the Kiwanis festival. It was in the non-competitive concert band category. We received a gold standard rating and went on to provincials [and] for that, we submitted a recording and were placed third,” said Boyes.
Boyes, who has been a member of the TCMS for close to 20 years, initially became involved herself because of a long-time member.
“Kathy Bromhall, who has worked with me as an educational assistant for years, has been a member of the TCMS since 1978. Many years ago, she mentioned the band to me [and it] sounded like something I’d be interested in joining,” Boyes stated. “I played trombone initially out of high school [but] I wanted to learn to play a new instrument [and] started taking beginner lessons [at the TCMS] playing clarinet in the basement at Harmony United Church. Then I moved up to the senior group…where I have been part of ever since.”
However, the TCMS has focused on building the band with members (with some musical experience) regardless of age.
“We take members of all levels of experience, as long as they can read music…we used to have a beginner band before [and] that’s where I started, but with member numbers being small [in the past], we stopped doing that and started focusing on the senior band…for a while we didn’t have a lot of younger kids that were part of the band, but there is certainly more interest now…one of our members started with us when he was young [Seth Spry] and ended up going to university for music education, became a teacher and fills in as a conductor for us,” Boyes stated.
Despite enduring some setbacks throughout the years, the TCMS has come back with a strong band and renewed confidence to continue its legacy.
“We’ve definitely grown over the last couple of years. We almost had to close at one point because membership was quite low…then COVID hit [and] we had nowhere to play [and] there were no grants. So financially, it was really hard to survive [but] we’ve turned it around and have definitely done better. We now have around 35 members in our bands [and] it seemed like after the pandemic ended the interest became stronger and we started to get more opportunities to play around the city and the county,” explained Boyes.
The TCMS, which is a registered charity, gains funding from various sources.
“Our members do pay a membership fee to be part of our band [so] we have money that comes from that which helps us. But we also receive money from [various] grants from the city. We also get some private donations from people, including past members,” Boyes said.
Interest for the TCMS, nevertheless, continues to grow amongst the public across various programs and events.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work with public schools…including École Dufferin [and] just reaching out to the younger kids [with music],” Boyes said. “We also want to provide music to people who may not have a chance to hear live music…like playing in the parks and in different places. One of our main goals is trying to reach as many people as we can with our music and to get the community interested.”
