Following an extraordinarily long run of consecutive work, in Croatia, London and Oxford, I returned to Oxford to record choral works by Mozart and Haydn under the baton of Paul Brough, with Instruments of Time & Truth and the excellent Choir of Keble College Oxford. Adrian Peacock was the producer. We recorded Mozart’s Missa in C major [K. 258] on Saturday 2nd October

I performed Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore [K. 339] at SJE Arts (St. John the Evangelist Church) on Iffley Rd in Oxford on Friday 1st October 2021. I last performed at SJE Arts in 2015. On this occasion I played with the Oxford-based orchestra, ‘Instruments of Time & Truth’. We played in the 11am concert, which was part of the Divine Office Festival, promoted by Martin Randall

When I was researching music to include in the book I am writing and refining at the moment (about the natural trumpet), I kept finding myself on Uppsala University’s website browsing the the database of digitised manuscript images from the Düben collection. The Düben collection is an extensive collection of musical manuscripts from throughout Europe. It was compiled in Stockholm by members of

I performed as one of the soloists in Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto [BWV 1047] with the Croatian Baroque Ensemble - Hrvatski barokni ansambl - for the second time this year. Last time, in May, I played in a programme entitled ‘Erschallet, Trompeten!’ in the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb and I had to isolate for 10 days upon my return. This time I performed in Varaždin as part

Immediately after performing George Frideric Handel’s Ariodante at the Göttingen Händel Festival, I segued into another Handel (pasticcio) opera project, Il Muzio Scevola, with Il Gusto Barocco in Stuttgart. This opera featured a Prologue which had been specially written for the occasion by Th. W. Leininger in 2021 to a text from 1723 (Hamburg). The first act was by Filippo Amadei, with a second

It was brilliant to return to Göttingen for the International Handel Festival in September 2021. The festival usually takes place in May each year, but it has been displaced by the coronavirus pandemic. The last time the festival took place was in May 2019, when we performed Handel’s Saul [HWV 53] in Hannoversche Münden. Getting to the first rehearsal was challenging; the Lufthansa flight

Now that I have had both vaccinations, and France has moved to the UK’s amber list (and vice versa), travel has become significantly more straightforward. Having had the vaccine I did not have to quarantine upon arrival in France, nor did I have to quarantine when I returned to the UK. There were still passenger locator forms, declarations from high incidence areas, an antigenic test to be undertaken,

On Saturday 31st July 2021 I performed for a wedding celebration at Avington Park near Winchester. A couple of classical music lovers from New York state celebrated a wedding ceremony at this fantastic venue in the Itchen valley, and hired the quartet Leos Strings for their special day. I played Purcell's Trumpet Tune for the entrance of the Groom and Groomsmen, with Leos Strings - led by Laura

I was called in as a last-minute replacement first trumpet player (during the so-called pingdemic) for the Gabrieli Consort’s performance of Purcell’s King Arthur at the Three Choirs Festival. The performance took place in Worcester Cathedral on Monday 26th May 2021. I had performed this version of King Arthur at short notice once before with the Gabrieli Consort in Groningen and in Hamburg in

During the first lockdown in 2020, I had the idea of organising a natural trumpet course to take place as soon as the restrictions would allow. By September 2020, the inaugural course had taken place. It had been a great success, and demand for a future course was evident - so I decided to organise another course in 2021 (as soon as restrictions were suitably relaxed) with a new programme of music.Again

I performed Bach's B Minor Mass [BWV 232] with the Gabrieli Consort in the Great Hall at the historic St Bartholomew's Hospital in London on Thursday 8th July 2021. The hospital was founded by Rahere, a courtier of Henry I, in 1123. An astonishing 900 years later, the hospital is still caring for patients on the same site. This YouTube video explains the fascinating history of the hospital: 

Having isolated in France before rehearsing and performing Mozart’s Idomeneo in Würzburg, I returned to Paris with Les Talens Lyriques, instead of going home as I usually would. These are still not usual times and it was not pragmatic for me to return to London (to quarantine in England and then to have to quarantine again upon return to France). So, as it happened, I had ten isolation-free

It all began with doubt as I boarded the train towards London St. Pancras. In light of the coronavirus situation French entry requirements had changed just 10 hours before I travelled, which left some doubt as to whether I would be permitted to get even as far as the Eurostar lounge. Luckily, entry was permitted. I travelled to Puteaux, to the west of Paris where I would be in quarantine. Other Parisians

While flying over the Alps somewhere in the vicinity of Venice, it occurred to me that it has been around eight months since I last left England. Even despite the extra epidemiological challenges at the moment it was a huge morale boost to travel to Zagreb in Croatia to perform Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.2 with the Croatian Baroque Ensemble (Hrvatski Barokni Ansambl) for a performance, with a

After last month’s abridged video recording (for television broadcast), The English Concert made an unabridged audio recording of Handel’s ‘La Resurrezione’ [HWV 47] at the Sage Gateshead. The orchestra and vocal soloists were conducted by Harry Bicket. In light of the improving pandemic situation, musicians were able to travel to the UK to play in the project (having followed the restrictions

Prof. Dr. Edward Hankins Tarr (b.15/06/1936 Norwich, Connecticut, USA - d.24/03/2020 Rheinfelden, Germany) was a pioneering performer and one of the most esteemed modern scholars of the natural trumpet. His research, editions, articles, dictionary entries, and books are indispensable to any student of the trumpet or natural trumpet. His translations of Bendinelli, Fantini and Altenburg’s treatises,

I played first trumpet with The English Concert for a video recording of Handel’s oratorio La resurrezione [HWV 47]. The recording took place at St. John’s Smith Square in London on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st of March 2021.Harry Bicket directed this very fine ensemble of instrumentalists and an esteemed cast of singers: Danielle De Niese (Soprano), Lucy Crowe (Soprano), Lawrence Zazzo (Countertenor),

After yesterday’s recording of Bach’s Easter Oratorio [BWV 249] and Der Himmel Lacht! Die Erde jubilieret [BWV 31], and last week’s recording of the B Minor Mass [BWV 232], I was invited back to Oxford to perform Christ lag in Todes Banden [BWV 4]. I play the Cornetto for a video recording at the chapel of New College, Oxford as part of Oxford Bach Soloists’ Easter festival. I played the Cornetto

Following last week’s B Minor Mass [BWV 232] video recording, I returned to Oxford to play first trumpet for another video recording with the Oxford Bach Soloists; this time we recorded Bach’s Easter Oratorio [BWV 249] and Der Himmel Lacht! Die Erde jubilieret [BWV 31], two of Bach’s exemplary works with trumpets. The recording took place on Friday 12th March 2021 at Christ Church Cathedral -

It has been three months since my last performance, which took place in York in December 2020. I am fortunate enough to have performed even this 'recently'; despite all adversity, just enough performing work has come my way to keep me physically and mentally agile as a trumpet player. I am also fortunate to be healthy, and physically unscathed by the coronavirus. Recent months seem to have passed by