The Georges Enescu Festival welcomed Les Talens Lyriques to perform Handel’s Giulio Cesare [HWV 17] on the 20th September 2019 and Handel’s Agrippina [HWV 6] on the 21st September 2019. These consecutive late night performances took place at the Romanian Athenaeum in the Romanian capital city of Bucharest. This project began with rehearsals in Paris at one of Les Talens Lyriques’ usual Montmartre

Ping. An email notification from the Aurora Orchestra: “Hi Russell, Is there a chance you might be available and willing to play 1st natural trumpet for this memorised Berlioz project, including at the BBC Proms? You’d just be needed for Symphonie Fantastique.”  There followed a moment of hesitance and doubt, quickly overridden by a feeling of ‘if others can do it, I can do it’. Four

Handel wrote two oratorios featuring trombones in his brass section; one is Saul [HWV 53], which I had the great pleasure of playing earlier this year at the Göttingen Händel Festival and the other is Israel in Egypt [HWV 54], which was the focus of Saturday night’s concert at the Southwell Music Festival. The Festival Baroque Sinfonia and Festival Voices joined forces under Marcus

I performed with Vox Luminis in the 11th century Romanesque Basilica of St Magdalene in Vézelay, a UNESCO world heritage site, around 230km southeast of Paris in the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The choir and orchestra of Vox Luminis gave a concert at 21:00 on Thursday 22nd August 2019 as part of La Cité de la Voix Festival in Vézelay. The group performed three works by George Frideric

After I played in the BBC Proms for the first time in September 2016 I wrote about the inspiring influence of being allowed to stay up late as a child to watch the Last Night of the Proms - broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall. Later in life, as a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music, the area around the Royal Albert Hall became very familiar. On occasion, I would have morning rehearsals

As I played the final phrase of my tenth performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.2 in F major [BWV 1047] (which took place last Saturday at Castle Ashby) I felt as I often do after playing that piece - that it would be great to play it again very soon. Playing Brandenburg 2 is a definite adrenaline rush and there’s something in the thrill of its survival that makes you

I performed John Stanley’s Trumpet Voluntary as the bride (Celia Madden) entered St Benet's Minster in Beccles, Suffolk on Saturday 3rd August 2019. Celia and I met while studying together at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and it was a great pleasure and privilege to play as she entered the church on her wedding day. Celia married Joseph Carter at 2pm and their wedding service

Solomon’s Knot’s Purcell Pageant programme - which we first aired in the Ryedale Festival just one week ago - was in fact devised to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of two of Solomon’s Knot’s loyalest supporters. The couple invited Solomon’s Knot to the Cambridge Buddhist Centre on Friday 2nd August 2019 to perform a musical pageant in celebration of their wedding anniversary

July 2019 saw a personal milestone with a 10th performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major [BWV 1047] on the natural trumpet. I first performed this notorious work on the 24th June 2011 while studying historical performance at the Royal College of Music and I have subsequently performed it at Bedford School, at St. Anne’s in Kew Green in Richmond, at the Valletta Baroque Festival

Solomon’s Knot gave three performances during a residency at the Ryedale Festival in Yorkshire. The festival has been described by the Guardian newspaper as ‘the jewel in Yorkshire’s cultural crown’ and browsing though their brochure, it was evident that this is an exceptional festival. The first concert of Solomon’s Knot’s residency took place at Ampleforth Abbey and it featured

I performed Purcell’s ‘Hark! the echoing air’ from the Fairy Queen with Clare Lloyd-Griffiths (soprano) and Solomon’s Knot as part of a special Proms edition of the BBC Radio 3 programme ‘In Tune’. The live broadcast took place just after the 17:00 news on Friday 19th July 2019 (the First Night of the Proms) in front of an audience at Imperial College London on Prince Consort Road. The

Sunday 7th July 2019 saw two differing performances (both by I Fagiolini) of Monteverdi's Orfeo in the Jerwood Hall at LSO St. Luke's in London. Music & Theatre for All and I Fagiolini had teamed together to present a 'relaxed performance' at 3pm, which welcomed an audience of all ages. Special provision had been made for those with special educational needs, particularly autism and the performance

Following on from the most recent Orfeo at the Stour Music Festival, I Fagiolini gave a subsequent performance on Friday 5th July 2019 in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall at the University of York, on the first day of the National Centre for Early Music's York Early Music Festival 2019. This Orfeo differed from any of I Fagiolini's earlier performances: with the addition of student singers from

I arrived in Paris during a heatwave, the day after France's warmest temperature of 45.9°C was recorded in Gallargues-le-Montueux on 28th June 2019. Our Eurostar had been slightly delayed, but we managed to make it to Colline d'Asie before it closed to enjoy nem and pho in an authentically humid climate! After dinner I had arranged for Will and I to meet a friend who had been with us on the tour

It was a great pleasure to rejoin Robert Hollingworth's I Fagiolini for a performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo at the Stour Music Festival at All Saints Church near Boughton Aluph (near Ashford in Kent) on Friday 28th June 2019. The 2019 festival marks the departure of Stour Music's artistic director Mark Deller (countertenor). He will be succeeded by Robert Hollingworth who will direct future festivals,

Following on from our project in January in Salzburg’s Mozartwoche, Les Talens Lyriques revisited Mozart's Betulia Liberata [K.118/74c], under the direction of Christophe Rousset, for a performance in Paris on Saturday 22nd June 2019. The performance took place at La Seine Musicale, an impressive new venue - completed in 2017 - which is situated on an island on the River Seine between

I came back from Snape Maltings with two deviations from my normal route. The first was a stopover at the Lodge to continue to learn to make trumpets (I began making my first trumpet bell yesterday) with David Staff. After staying at the Lodge, the next waypoint on my route home was a village near Thaxted in the Essex countryside - where I performed, on Thursday 20th June 2019, with the Brandenburg

‘Snape Maltings, Snape Maltings, Thank Benjamin Britten for Snape Maltings’ was the specially-written encore of Vox Luminis’ King Arthur performance at Snape Maltings in 2017. That memorable performance, exactly two years ago, was my first appearance with the group and there have been many exceptional projects in the interim, including performances at Versailles, the Utrecht Early Music Festival,

Handel’s Agrippina [HWV 6] was the focus for Christophe Rousset’s Les Talens Lyriques at the beginning of June 2019, with performances in the Klangvocal Festival in Dortmund on Saturday 8th June 2019 and in the Halle Händel Festspiele on Monday 10th June 2019. Rehearsals began in Paris and the group worked to familiarise itself with this long (circa 4-hour) and intricate opera. The ensemble

I performed a programme of baroque music (on modern instruments) with the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Saturday 1st June 2019. I played third trumpet in the section with (fellow Manx man) Sam Kinrade and Ellie Lovegrove on 1st and 2nd, respectively. The programme began with Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum [HWV 283] and continued after the interval with Bach’s Orchestral Suite