Greetings from the St Endellion Festival, North Cornwall! On Wednesday 2nd August I was the soloist in an unconducted performance of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, as part of the festival’s opening concert. The programme also featured singers Dame Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams in Durufle’s Requiem. Other festival highlights still to come include three performances of Verdi’s La Traviata, Elgar’s The Kingdom, and a concert of Pulcinella by Stravinsky and Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.2, conducted by Adam Hickox.

I am delighted to be a part of the new unit ‘Meet the Instruments’ on Aurora Classroom – Aurora Orchestra’s digital platform supporting music learning in schools for 0-7 year olds. You can get a 14-day free trial via their website and watch me introduce the trumpet with fun performances and demonstrations (whilst channelling my inner CBeebies presenter, dungarees and all!). There are numerous areas on the website so do feel free get in touch with me for any help with signing up or navigating the site.

A large portion of my summer this year is dedicated to the BBC Prom I’m involved in with Aurora Orchestra - performing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring from memory. After many hours of concentrated practice I have finally memorised my part and will now just be finessing any details (such as dynamics, articulation and phrasing) ahead of the first rehearsals. I was invited by the orchestra to create some short video diaries to document my memorising process, so click the link below to watch the videos!