Ian Porthouse

A conductor and cornetist, Ian Porthouse is an important figure on Britain's brass band scene. Porthouse joined the Desford Colliery Band in 1987, and the band won national championships for three consecutive years. He became principal cornet of the famed Black Dyke Mills Band in 1992; the band won Britain's National Championships at the Royal Albert Hall in 1994. Porthouse increasingly moved into conducting, becoming musical director of the Pennine Band in 1999 and the Tredegar Town Band in 2008. He continues to serve as conductor of the Tredegar Town Band, and in 2016 he made his recording debut with that group on the album War Memorials: Music for Brass Band, returning in 2022 on the Albion label with a pair of albums devoted to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Porthouse is Director of Brass Band Studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire.