Following on from our performance at the Theater an der Wien earlier this month, we revisited Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba (K. 111) for two further performances and a recording with Les Talens Lyriques under the direction of Christophe Rousset.

Our recording took place at La Seine Musicale in Paris, and it was flanked by performances at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 25 March 2026 (after which we said farewell to Yamina, who is retiring from Hotel du Pré in Paris) and a final rendition at the Opéra de Lausanne in Switzerland on 29 March 2026. When we were in Vienna, we had performed with the local Arnold Schönberg Chor; the Jeune Chœur de Paris took the helm for the recording and performance in Paris, and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne joined us for the performance in Switzerland. The soloists remained the same as before, namely: Mélissa Petit (Venere), Alisa Kolosova (Ascanio), Anna El Khashem (Silvia), Alasdair Kent (Aceste), and Eleonora Bellocci (Fauno).

On Friday 27 March 2026, Will Russell and I were not required for the recording sessions, so we were tasked with delivering workshops at a school, Lycée Guillaume Apollinaire, in a southern suburb of Paris called Thiais. We taught three classes (ages 14–16) and played excerpts from Sonata Con Ariae zu der Keÿl Serenada Anno 1672 by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, ‘Military trumpet calls’ from Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie Universelle (1637), and a duet from The Delightful Pocket Companion for the German Flute by Valentine Snow (c.1745). We used the Mersenne military trumpet calls to demonstrate the signalling capabilities of the trumpet, and read an explanation of the trumpeter’s role in a military setting from Allain Manesson Mallet’s Les Travaux de Mars, ou L’Art de la guerre (1684)—helpfully already in French. We were playing from a copy of my book, 'Just' Natural Trumpet, which was very convenient!

The students decoded the military signals that Will and I (surrounded by teams of students) played from opposite ends of the classroom. The students studied the sheet music and were able to recognise patterns and decode the messages themselves; after a brief explanation of musical notation they were able to follow the basic contours of the music and identify the military calls from the ten examples. This was a very effective way to get the students engaged with reading the music and using patterns, high and low pitches, and the duration of the piece as clues. They seemed to enjoy this activity and the classes as a whole; as well as studying the musical aspects of our work with Les Talens Lyriques, they were also working in English as part of their linguistic studies. Many of the students had prepared questions to ask us in English and were very brave to speak English in front of their classmates. We had the wonderful Clarisse Mathiot from Les Talens Lyriques on hand to translate any unusual words or musical terms, and to explain anything in French that may not have been clear in English! This was an excellent way to spend our day and we were asked some very insightful questions in really impressive English!

It was great to visit Lausanne again; I last played in Lausanne with Les Talens Lyriques in November 2022 when I performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major (BWV 1047) along with the Orchestral Suite No. 3 (BWV 1068) and Orchestral Suite No. 4 (BWV 1069). It was great to revisit this beautiful city by Lac Léman.

I had spent most of the time in between the final performance in Vienna and the next part of the project (in Paris) continuing my quest to learn to make a natural trumpet with David Staff in Suffolk. I also attended a silversmithing course at West Dean College in West Sussex as part of my Arts Council England DYCP project. I will be doing a lot more trumpet making and silversmithing in April, with a total of seven days of lessons spread throughout the month and in between my trumpet-playing commitments.