A long overdue update..

I have to start this post with an apology; it has been so long since I have updated this site that it is gradually falling into a state of disrepair. The main reason for this is that we are currently building our new site and the content for this newer glossier version has been given most of my time. We are hoping that the new site will be easy to use and have lots of additional information such as sound clips and composer information, useful press packs and all our latest news.

So, what have we been up to over the last few months? Well, Katie is well and truly integrated into the group and we have done several recitals and workshops with her now. Our rehearsals are really enjoyable as we get to grips with some new repertoire and inevitably find our playing challenged by the many new works we have coming in from composers. One of our favourite pieces is Colori di Roma by Peter Longworth. We premiered this at the Caledonian Club in September and we have several more performances planned for it. It begins with a haunting flugel horn melody, has a second movement that sounds like rippling water, a third movement that intimates the heat of the sun and finishes with a soaring trumpet melody. Our audience loved it and we felt very privileged to have worked with Peter on it. We are hoping to record some of it for a short CD in the new year.
In the New Year we will be revisiting some of the Kagel fanfares and also working on playing some of our pieces from memory. We played Jimmy Van Heusen’s Imagination without music recently and we all agreed it was good not to have to rummage through our pads (mine is always the most disorganised) to find the encore! Singers and instrumental soloists normally perform without music but brass musicians are often reluctant to take this step, perhaps because our traditional home was at the back of the orchestra. We hope it will help us have a deeper feel for the music and take away the visual barrier that the music stand is between performer and audience.
As always for this time of year we have enjoyed doing the usual array of Messiahs and Christmas concerts, but the girls have also been doing some very exciting solo projects. Clare gave a sensational performance of the Hummel Trumpet Concerto with St Pauls Sinfonia, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her play. Katie is presenting a seminar on the natural trumpet at University College London in the cloisters on Sunday 13th December and Vickie is rehearsing with a very funky 1940’s dance band called Bombshellettes.