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Fast forward to 2025, and I was delighted to be invited to perform a trumpet and organ recital with him at the Hospitalkirche in the centre of Stuttgart on 4 December 2025. 

There was a great amount of artistic freedom in the planning stages of this project and I was able to choose the programme predominantly myself. Following the theme of music for English and German Christmas, the program included music by Henry Purcell, Anthony Holborne, Michael Pratorius, Harold Darke, Paul Edwards and others; it also featured some perennial trumpet and organ favourites such as Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary and a piece of the same title by William Boyce. The program also included works by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, with the Hallelujah chorus from Messiah as a fitting finale that suited all facets of the Music for English and German Christmas theme. I also came down from the organ loft to play a piece (some considerable distance from Jörg) on three different historical instruments.

I edited and transcribed several of the keyboard reductions myself and played natural trumpet, cornetto, a valved C trumpet, and a rotary valved piccolo trumpet in A. I also gave a pre-concert talk about the programme and the instruments that I would be playing. 

Jörg Halubek performed on the Hospitalkirche church organ (Op. 1054) made by Friedrich Weigle in 1961. The name plate also notes ‘Dispositon, Mensuren und Intonation [by] Prof. Helmut Bornefeld (1906–1990)’. Jörg mentioned that the organ has not been replaced in this church because there is no regular church organist at this church; he noted that it could become a rare example of this famous organ builder’s work if it remains here for another 50 years or so.

My wife came with my to Stuttgart, and we enjoyed the impressive and expansive Christmas market there. On the morning of the concert we took the train to nearby Esslingen, where they have a Mediaeval themed Christmas Market: it was really impressive and well worth visiting! After this project, we travelled to Namur in Belgium and my wife stayed for a few days longer, while I began rehearsals with Vox Luminis for a project that will take us right up until Christmas, with performances in Hamburg, Rotterdam, Dortmund, Antwerp, London, Amsterdam, Modena and Brescia.