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Click on the relevant years below for further information including repertoires,
contest scores, photos
and Championships placings in those years.
Contest scores since 1997
Members Award recipients
A
SHORT HISTORY OF OUR ORGANISATION
The history of
this organisation dates back to the beginning of the
20th Century, 1909 to be precise, as this is when the 2nd
Brighton Scout Band was formed. How were they to
know that over the years this unit would manifest itself to
become one of the United Kingdom's most successful Youth Band
/ Drum Corps / Colour Guard organisations, and that since the
late 1970's it would have won almost every major UK trophy
available and that over 100 years later it would still be
going strong.
In 1983 the 2nd
Brighton Scout Band broke away from the Scout Association and
became the Imperial Knights Drum & Bugle Corps and then in 1988 the Imperial Knights and another Brighton based Drum Corps, the
Southwinds, merged to become The Southern
Knights Drum & Bugle Corps. In the same year a Cadet Corps was formed to cater for the younger age group.
In 1989 members of Southern Knights took part in, what was at
the time, the largest free concert in Brighton - "The
Heineken Lagoon Show" and provided the
majority of brass players and a large number of the
percussion.
The Main Corps were unable to field a marching unit in either 1991 or 1992 and therefore in 1993, following a trial year in the DCUK A Class, the Cadet Corps 'became' the Main Corps and
a new Cadet Corps was formed.
At the end of 1998 it was
decided to fold the marching band part of the organisation and
to just concentrate on the Colour Guard and have gone on to win the most British Championships across all
the competitive Winter Guard United Kingdom classes with a
membership of approximately 60 young people.
Since then we have diversified into a
performing arts group and in 2007 the organisation was renamed
Southern Knights Performing Arts and over the years has
performed at many varied events
inc stage shows, sports and fitness events, music videos and
much more. Our 30th Anniversary year was in 2018 and the organisation
looked at how it can expand and improve on the services it offers. One area that continually came to the forefront
was offering the activity of colour guard to those with additional needs. Having taken inspiration from such organisations as the Free Players Drum & Bugle Corps from the USA we were extremely pleased to announce in November 2017 that
the SK Stars
were being formed and would be offering an all age opportunity to those with additional needs. In April 2017
a group of the Alumni from the Drum Corps days wanted re-introduce a musical performing group to the Southern
Knights, inspired by the introduction of SoundSport
to the UK, and formed SK
International (SKINT)
Over the years
this organisation has had a huge following and in 1996, in an
attempt to cater for the growing number of past members /
staff and supporters who not only wanted to remember the
"good old marching band days" but also wanted to support the
current organisation in it's endeavours, the Knights
Alumni Association was formed and performed an indoor
concert. Check
out our Merchandising
Page
for Audios CD's and DVD's from the Drum Corps years.
Since the mid
1980's many members have travelled to the USA to compete
within either the Drum Corps International or Winter
Guard
International circuits - click
here for a list of names - last updated 10 Oct 2002 and
a number of past staff and members have, and in some cases
still are, providing judging services to the activity -
including Drum Corps United
Kingdom, Drum Corps Europe, Winter Guard United Kingdom and British Youth
Band Association.
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