Russ Orr

Russ hails from North Lincolnshire and he began to play the cornet at the age of about 8 after hearing a Trumpeter on the Royal Variety Show. The next morning he said to his mum “I would like to do that”. Unfortunately for the world of banding, his mum thought he meant that he would ‘like to learn to play’ (he just meant he wanted to be on the TV) and so she organised for him to have lessons.



Between 1991 and 1995 he studied in Newcastle and Leeds before returning to the area to begin a career in teaching. Either side of these years he played for Barrow Concert Band, initially in the 4th section, where they became the first band from outside of Yorkshire to win a Yorkshire areas. Russ progressed over the years to the position of Principal cornet and the band eventually gained promotion to the second section.

In 1998 EYMS Band were looking for font row cornet players. At the time Miles Davison was playing Solo Horn for EYMS whilst also conducting Barrow and he put Russ’s name forward to their MD, John Roberts. John listened to him play, raised a pint glass to his ear and said, ‘We’ll give him a go’. His first engagement was a recording for the Beautiful South and his first contest was at the Albert Hall. 

It was during this stint with EYMS that Russ met Wendy. A founder member of EYMS, at the time she was living in Hull but playing for Wallace Arnold Rothwell. They were married in 2002, by which time Russ had moved to join Wendy at Rothwell, who had merged with Yorkshire Imps to become the band with the longest name in the world (The David Urquart Travel Yorkshire Imperial Wallace Arnold Rothwell Band).

Eventually in 2004, the strain of wearing a blazer badge the size of a car door had taken its toll and so they both retired from playing.

Now after dabbling with the Bass Drum, Tam Tam, Tenor Horn and even a spot of miming, Russ has been persuaded to come off the subs bench and join the band for real (who knows we might even allow him to play some actual notes eventually).