Chatfield Brass Band Inc

The Chatfield Brass Band, Inc. is dedicated to keeping the spirit and tradition of band music alive in America-by performing band music and by operating a renown library that has one of the most extensive collections of band music in the world.

The city of Chatfield has a long history of bands and performance. The first city band was organized in 1883. In 1885 the town council approved a tax appropriation to fund summer band concerts. The summer band concerts and the tax levy that supports them still exists today. The city band dissolved in the early 1900's but was revived by James Perkins in 1969. One problem facing the band was the unavailability of sheet music. Not just any sheet music, but the hard to find kind; the challenging pieces rarely played today. Perkins sent letters to schools asking for their unused music, and in 1973 thus began the Chatfield Brass Band Music Lending Library. Today inside the library, stacks of filing cabinets contain thousand of cataloged pieces of music. Bands as far away as Japan and Australia have borrowed from this valuable collection.