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Connection: In my final year at the Royal Academy of Music, pianist Jennifer Walsh and I successfully auditioned as a duo for the Park Lane Group. The Park Lane Group (PLG) was a scheme set up in 1956 to give young musicians the opportunity to perform solo recitals in major London venues. There was a particular focus on contemporary music and a number of different composers were featured each year. The PLG is sadly no longer in existence, but I’m very grateful to have been a part of it. During our year on the scheme, Jen and I performed at St James’s Piccadilly and at St John’s Smith Square. Excitingly, 2016 was the PLG’s 60th Anniversary. That year, the featured composers were James MacMillan and Sally Beamish and, as part of their diamond anniversary celebrations, the PLG commissioned Sally to write a trumpet and piano piece for us: Trinculo.
Once the piece was ready, Jen and I were offered the invaluable experience of a coaching session with Sally at the Royal College of Music. We had a lot of fun exploring the different musical characters and enjoyed the challenge of the tricky but idiomatic writing. One of my favourite things about Trinculo is that the trumpet and piano are truly equal partners. Jen and I have performed Trinculo in many recitals across the UK - including for a number of concerts in Lincolnshire schools (2019) where I wore a very fetching jesters hat! Trinculo is a particularly great showcase for Jen’s virtuosity and I can’t wait to perform it with her in my album launch concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Tuesday 6 May (4pm), plus a live Q&A with Sally Beamish.
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