"Can’t we do something like that?" was the chance remark, made by the late County Alderman Colin Dews, which originated the idea of forming the Castleford Young Musicians’ Society, as it was called then. The occasion was a post-concert reception at Castleford Boys’ Modern School for the Band and Choir of Musical Youth International of Michigan, USA, under the direction of Dr Lester McCoy, on Thursday 7th July 1966.
As a result a small committee was formed consisting of Mrs Comfort Burgess, Head of the Girls’ Modern School, Mrs Vera Lorriman, the Deputy Head, her husband Mr David Lorriman, Mr Rodney Green, Head of Music at Castleford Grammar School, and Mr Edwin Lack, Head of Music at Ashton Road Secondary Modern School. Preparations were made, and the first rehearsal took place, with meagre numbers, on a Saturday morning in the following September at the Girls’ Modern School. At that time the society had four activities: Concert Band (Mr Green), Choir (Mrs Lorriman), Recorder group (Mr Lack), and Scottish country dancing (Miss Muriel Addy). Rehearsals continued on Saturday mornings for a few months and then were changed to Friday evenings.
Shortly after the first concert in late November 1966, the Dance group was disbanded, and about two years later Mr Lack left the Society. The Recorder group was then taken over by Miss Rosalind Burgess, in time for the society to take part in the televised inaugural concert at the new Castleford Civic Centre in 1970. The Recorder group continued to function until the early 1970’s, when it too was disbanded. It was also about this time that the Society moved its HQ to Castleford High School.
The Society flourished particularly in the mid to late 70’s when there were over one hundred members and more concerts were performed thanks to the interest shown by local charitable organisations. The Society became a registered charitable trust in 1971. Long-playing records were made in 1975 and 1976, and a concert was given annually in Great Yarmouth from 1978 until 1994.
There have been remarkably few changes either in the administration or the musical direction of the Society during its 58 years - Ralph Jaggar became Choir Director in 1981 on the retirement of Vera Lorriman, and Sophie Tawn replaced Mr Jaggar in 2022. Philip Clarkson became Band Director in 1996 on the retirement of Mr Rodney Green, who became our President in succession to Mrs. Burgess and Mr. Evans. Mr Jaggar became President in 2020 on the passing of Mr Green. The word "Society" was dropped from the Organisation’s title in the mid 1990’s. Mrs Jaggar and Mr Forster remain as Secretary and Treasurer respectively, the former replacing Mr Fred Phipps in the distant past, the latter taking over from Mr Jaggar, who, in turn, had replaced Mr John Wright. St Joseph’s Primary School became the new HQ in 1996.
Through the years there have been many notable concerts and venues, but few stand out more than those of the highly successful visits to Herne in Germany in September 1986, and to Paris in 1996, which culminated in an unforgettable concert at EuroDisney on Thursday 30th May.
Castleford Young Musicians celebrated its 50th anniversary with a gala concert at Castleford Civic Centre on Friday 20th May 2016. The group also celebrated its 21st, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th and 45th anniversaries in the same way. In addition, CYM produced both a CD and DVD to mark their Golden Anniversary. Have a listen to the CD tracks here!
CYM launched their website in November 1999. This has become a very popular way of keeping up to date with the group amongst both current and ex-members, as has the Facebook group set up in November 2008, the Twitter account in 2011 (@CYM_BAND_CHOIR) and the Instagram account (@casyoungmusicians) in May 2015.