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York Euphoniums have been getting a lot notice lately . I read a few articles from the UK ( Thanks to Charley Brighton ) about these new horns . David Childs is a performing artist for them as is Gail Robertson : http://www.sonarewinds.com/node/2708 .
Does anyone know if a York euphonium will be available at the Army Tuba/Euphonium conference ?

Here's the link to the York website : http://www.york-brass.com/englisch/pres ... childs.htm

From what I am told, they won't be in the US for a while and when they are here, they won't be called a York because of the tubas that already have that name (different company).

Our teaching fellow here at UNT (Danny Vinson, retired from the Coast Guard Band) owns a York because he brought it back from Germany. I've tried this horn and I really like it. Sounds a lot like a Besson, but not completely. Not as quirky intonation-wise, from what I remember.

Hopefully we'll see them soon!

red0radio0head wrote :

From what I am told, they won't be in the US for a while and when they are here, they won't be called a York because of the tubas that already have that name (different company).

Our teaching fellow here at UNT (Danny Vinson, retired from the Coast Guard Band) owns a York because he brought it back from Germany. I've tried this horn and I really like it. Sounds a lot like a Besson, but not completely. Not as quirky intonation-wise, from what I remember.

Hopefully we'll see them soon!

Looks like WWBW has them for sale already !

http://www.wwbw.com/York-Euphonium-2c-B ... 1856.music

Does this mean they will be on display at the USAATE conference ?

They had an exhibition at the Dutch Brassband championships last weekend. I liked the compensating model with main tuning slide trigger very much! Big dark, yet singing sound. Sounds like a besson copy (maybe better).

I have managed to play a York here in the States that belonged to one of York's performing artists visiting in the Boston area last summer. The York's are built on the old Besson tooling. The Eminence roughly correlates with the Besson Prestige. They are wonderful horns and sound like....well, a Besson!

I ended up purchasing a new Buffett-built Besson Prestige, since I could get my hands on one, but the York's are fine horns as well.

IMHO either the York or the Besson represent top-of-the line options for the serious euphonium performer.

Doug Ruby

I would disagree with the statement that the York was built on the old Besson tooling. I believe that London Musical Instruments may have that tooling if not Buffet-Crampton. LMI employs a lot of the old Besson factory workers.

The York name issue has been resolved. I don't know how. I think Brook-Mays had bought the rights to the York name years before they went into bankruptcy.

York has created a similiarly designed model to the Prestige with a number of differences. The most notable difference is the larger bell. I am not talking only about the bell diameter, but the throat of the bell. You can check the York website for the diameter.

I have also had the chance to hear Gail Robertson, a York artist, play the York quite a bit. Her sound increased in dimension with the change from her previous instrument. She loves the horn and sounds terrific on it. The sound of the York is dark and huge. I'm not a euphonium player so I am not familiar enough with euphs to address the other differences but the factory rep said they worked to solve a number of problems.

There was a York display at the US Open Brass Band Championship in the Chicago area in mid-November. The had a small-ish display which included a York Preference Euphonium, and a Preference BBb tuba.

My wife actually preferred the Preference (OK, no pun intended) euphonium to one other Eminence she'd played and considered buying it. Her Willson is a terrific instrument so in the end, she decided to keep that horn.

I don't play BBb but I heard others play the York BBb. The sound was more massive than the Besson BBb's that I've heard in the past. A fellow band member said that it was more nimble than most BBb's. It cost enough that it should sound massive, be nimble, in tune and permanently shiny. Very expensive.

Yorks are, and have been, available in the states though it is hard to find them and they are poorly advertised. They did not even bring an EEb to the brass band championships. That seemed not-too-smart to me. They will be at Mid-West and promised to have an EEb there.

Among the replacements for the Prestige is the Miraphone Ambassador which I think is a very underrated euphonium.

Don't know anything about the York tubas, but the euphoniums built by York Brass are definitely built using the tooling formerly used by Besson.

Under the Music Group, the tooling for Besson was transfered to Schreiber-Keilworth in Germany. S-K made saxophones and the Music Group had S-K make the parts that were then assembled in the UK. This disjoint manufacturing process was one of the causes of Besson's quality issues in the later days.

When Besson went into receivership, Buffett bought Besson but not the manufacturing process in the UK (hence LMI is created) or the tooling (hence S-K creates York). Buffett-Besson had all new tooling made and the manufacturing process is done by the same plant that makes Meinl-Weston tubas.

It was my understanding that LMI is the UK-based manufacturing descendant for Besson tubas and that York is the German descendant for Euphonium and Cornet, whilst the new Besson is sort of an all new creation from a manufacturing point of view.

Doug