Endurance Steel Orchestra

Manager – Shareen Gray

Endurance is the brainchild of Marlon Hibbert who had the dream of starting his very own steel band. The dream became reality on the 1^st July 2009 and the orchestra began with eight musicians, they soon became very busy, performing at all sorts of events in and around South East London, and all the while growing in number steadily to twenty musicians from five surrounding boroughs performing with the Orchestra on a regular basis. Marlon is very proud of the fact that the musicians are all involved in the running of the project and that they are able to help provide lessons and workshops, as well as performing to the public. Endurance is a not for profit organization and as such is committed to using every penny made to reach out to more young people and children, from performing at primary school events where much younger children can see musicians of all different races, all working together to make fun music, to showing their peers when they are out busking or providing a workshop that everyone can work together, no matter what their postcode is, this is what keeps Marlon and the musicians focused and driven, and hopefully his enthusiasm for pan will spill over  into the other members and keep them on the same road.

Marlon is not only looking forward to watching Endurance grow with the years but he hopes to bring out the best in many more musicians, incorporating other instruments, including singers and songwriters in various projects and encouraging budding arrangers to use their creative skills whenever possible. They put this to good use when the orchestra performed for the opening evening of the 58^th annual music festival in the village of Ashwell, Hertfordshire, and wowed the sell-out crowd with an evening of Pan and Piano, making good use of the piano skills of two of the musicians, treating the audience to some intricate classical pieces as well as some jazz that could have come straight from Ronnie Scotts or even Carnegie Hall!!  The Orchestra has many events, the majority of which were held in very prestigious surroundings, no mean feat for such a young organisation, add to that the corporate events and other performances for the local community and countless private functions and you will see that as a highly competent and entertaining band Endurance is proving very popular.