We were travelling to Edinburgh in order to perform in the Lammermuir Festival. Our concert, which began with a minute’s silence, took place at St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington and we performed Spiritato’s Inspiring Bach programme, which we first played in St. Giles’ Cripplegate in London and subsequently revisited at Stour Music in June.

The performance at Lammermuir Festival was excellent: the venue had an excellent acoustic and the festival audience was very welcoming. It was a pleasure to lead the section of four natural trumpeters [playing without holes] in this ambitious and forward-thinking project.

Haddington is a historic and beautiful town on the River Tyne in Scotland. Our visit was lamentably short, and I would love to explore this area again in the future.

After the performance I travelled to a hotel near Edinburgh Airport and early the next morning I took a flight to London City Airport. Upon arrival I saw a photograph, taken in November 1987, of The Queen opening the Airport. I then took the Docklands Light Railway (which was also opened by The Queen in 1987) to my rehearsal at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre. Our long-reigning monarch certainly has a lasting legacy.

Just across the Thames, Her Majesty’s coffin was, with all imaginable ceremony and pageantry, taken from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster—as responsibility for her coffin was formally transferred from the Royal Household to the state. I watched as much as I possibly could on the news on my iPhone as the events unfolded, but my rehearsal commitments prevented me from seeing it in person: although it was happening just over the river! As I was nearby it was very tempting to try to get closer but I knew that tens of thousands of people would be making their way across the bridges and that walking progress would be slow. I didn’t want to risk getting stuck on the wrong side of the river and being late for the rehearsal. I will watch the television coverage on BBC iPlayer.

I had, however, managed to visit some of the route (the Mall and Horseguards Parade) in the early morning, as the public was only just starting to line the streets. At 14:22, I heard (in person) the muted tolling of Big Ben in the Elizabeth Tower and the minute-gun salutes from Hyde Park—both sounded every minute as the procession progressed. On my way back to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, mourners were joining the very long queue to pay their respects to The Queen who is lying in state at the thousand-year-old Westminster Hall. The queue stretched Westwards from Westminster, over Lambeth Bridge and all the way along to Southbank to, by 14:45, the Southbank Centre. By the time my rehearsal finished, the queue was already beyond Blackfriars station. It is expected to reach Bermondsey.

It has been a remarkable week, and I happened to be tantalisingly close to some of these historic scenes in both Scotland and London.

I began rehearsing with Aurora Orchestra, ahead of our trip to Bonn later this week, where we will be performing Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, from memory.