Keith has been successfully directing brass bands for around 50 years!  He commenced regularly conducting brass bands while he was a student at the University of Manchester and following two enjoyable periods directing Salvation Army bands he entered the highly competitive British brass band contesting scene in the Fall of 1976.  In the following 20 years he enjoyed an enormous amount of success, including having the privilege of directing the first-placed band in more than 40 contests.  In several of these competitions upwards of 20 bands would have been performing.  The majority of these successes were with his own band, the GUS Band and later the William Davis Band, while some were as a guest conductor, primarily with Scotland’s Newtongrange Band.

Since moving, with his wife Audrey and  daughters Debbie and Katie, to USA in 1996 he has been delighted to receive a number of invitations to return to Britain to conduct and, following a recent appearance with Newtongrange Band, one commentator wrote “a welcome return to the UK of a conductor of proven 24 carat class “.  (Iwan Fox, www.4barsrest.com).  Keith was also privileged to be featured in a full-length article in the international magazine, The Brass Herald, in October 2017.

Each of the bands he has directed have established an outstanding reputation for their concert presentations and these have been enhanced by the inclusion of some of Keith’s brass band arrangements.  While living in England he was happy to accept invitations to conduct at various locations around Europe and for a period he was principal guest conductor of Switzerland’s Brass Band Fribourg. 

Since arriving in USA, he has enjoyed several opportunities to direct bands in both USA and Canada. While competitions are less prominent in this country than in Britain, he has continued his previous success by conducting the first-placed band on 5 occasions in different sections of the North American Brass Band Championships.  He is regularly in demand to adjudicate at the North American Championships where he is able to make use of his experience as a regularly-featured adjudicator around Britain and Europe.

Keith tried his hand at brass band orchestration while still in high school and this aspect of banding has continued to hold his attention.  He has more than 100 published arrangements with publishers in Britain, Switzerland and USA.  Some of his arrangements have been used as test pieces at major championships.  In order to make his arrangements available more rapidly he has formed his own publishing company, Alum Creek Music (www.alumcreekmusic.com).