A TOTAL Of 45 members of St Ronan's Silver Band and Innerleithen Pipe Band are travelling to the Austrian Tyrol next week to take part in the Alpine Brass Music Festival in the village of Ellmau.

And, as part of the trip, the musicians have been asked to appear on Austrian national ORF TV channel's flagship programme, Good Morning Austria.

Band Secretary Keith Belleville told us: "We have been planning the trip for over a year.

"We are so lucky to have this opportunity to travel to such a beautiful part of the world and it seemed like a great chance for us to travel alongside our colleagues from the Pipe Band to give our music a truly Scottish-feel.

"We were delighted, too, to be asked to appear on national TV as this is a great opportunity for us to promote our music and our own part of the world to a different audience."

The trip, which gets underway next Wednesday, will see the musicians travel to Munich, then on to Ellmau where they will take part in the mountain-side festival along with a selection of other bands from across Europe.

As well as the evening concerts and TV trip to Innsbruck, the bands will perform at a farmers' market and play in a massed bands parade.