A new commission!

I am delighted to announce that composer Charlotte Harding and I have been awarded a grant from the Vaughan Williams Foundation for our new collaboration. Charlotte is writing me a piece for solo (unaccompanied) flugelhorn, based on the ideas of openness, connection and flow. I thought it might be helpful for me to give some context to this new work, so here goes… 

In 2019 I was offered funding by the Royal Philharmonic Society as part of their ‘Allianz Mentorship Scheme’. I was keen to make the most of this brilliant opportunity and to think outside the box in terms of whom I might ask to mentor me. After discussions with the RPS, I chose three people to work with during the year: trumpeter Huw Morgan, bass singer Brindley Sherratt and sports psychologist Dr Pippa Grange. 

For anyone unfamiliar with Pippa Grange’s work, she is a psychologist, author and, until the end of 2019, she was Head of People and Team Development at The Football Association. Pippa was credited by Gareth Southgate (and many others) as a driving force behind the England men’s football team’s success in the 2018 World Cup after she worked with them to improve the mental side of their game. The RPS came up with the idea of me working with Pippa as there are so many links between the psychology of sport and music and, thankfully, it was something that Pippa was as interested to explore as I was.

The first of my two sessions with Pippa was in January 2019 at her home in the Peak District. She was so generous with her time and we spoke about many different aspects of performance. Something that really stayed with me was our discussion about the problems that come with aiming for perfection. It became clear that much of my thinking was very inward-looking, obsessing over playing something ‘perfectly’/trying not to split any notes and chastising myself when I (inevitably) failed. Pippa helped me to reframe my thinking and turn my focus outwards, concentrating instead on the experience of the audience. How did I want them to feel? What atmosphere did I want to create in the room?

Turning my attention away from myself in a performance helped to free me up in my playing - I felt more willing to take risks and dare to go to the extremes, since my goal was now to create different waves of emotion for the audience. Pippa helped me to realise that the onus for perfection couldn’t be all on me. Instead I could think of myself as a vessel through which the music flowed. The notes on the page already existed. My job was to stay open and help breathe them into life. 

In early 2021, Pippa released a book called ‘Fear Less: How to Win at Life Without Losing Yourself’. She got in touch with me to ask whether she could reference one of our conversations in the book. I was sent the chapter by Pippa’s editor and I helped to re-word a few phrases to make them more musically idiomatic. It was so exciting to later receive my copy of the published book and to read the rest of Pippa’s brilliant writing. 

In March 2021, I was driving up to Nottingham for a concert. I enjoy listening to podcasts while driving and one of my go-to podcasts at the time was ‘Dare to Lead’, hosted by Brené Brown (her guests include Barack Obama, America Ferrera and Simon Sinek). So you can probably imagine my excitement when I scrolled through to find to that Brené’s latest episode was an interview with Pippa about her new book! Almost an hour into the interview, in the final section, Brené asks Pippa about “one more story” which she “thinks about a lot” and I was bowled over to discover that it was the chapter about my conversation with Pippa. It was an amazing feeling to hear my own story being discussed (albeit anonymously!) on one of my already-favourite podcasts.

Skipping forward two years, in March 2023 I was at a party with Charlotte Harding for our mutual friend’s birthday. Charlotte and I had previously worked together with Paraorchestra and more recently for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s project creating anthems across the country in the build-up to the 2022 Women’s Euros. Charlotte and I got chatting about the relationship between sport and music and I told her about my sessions with Pippa. I sent Charlotte the link to Brené/Pippa’s podcast episode the next day and she replied saying that she felt the concepts of being an open vessel and breathing something into life would make the most amazing premise for a new work. She was keen to draw on the links to sport/performance and to “create a linear, beautiful, vocal shape that grows in energy and freedom.”

I was immediately invested in this idea and set about finding funding for Charlotte’s commission fee. We are both hugely grateful to the Vaughan Williams Foundation for believing in this new work and for giving us the opportunity to create something very special together. I am also incredibly thankful to the RPS for giving me the opportunity to meet Pippa in the first place and spark this friendship. Pippa has since worked with brass students at the Royal College of Music in London and her impact on the FA is evident in the prominent role of her character in the current West-End play ‘Dear England’.

I will be performing the World Premiere of Charlotte’s piece, ‘…To Stay Open…’ in my recital for the Romsey Chamber Music Festival on Sunday 30th June 2024. We will also be recording and producing a video of the piece which will be available on YouTube later in the year. 

For more info, follow these links:

Brené Brown Podcast Episode (feature from 58:30): https://open.spotify.com/episode/10Xj93VCNNvioiivCNFg1f?si=8967a3f31b434e73

Charlotte Harding: https://www.charlottehardingmusic.com/

Dr Pippa Grange: https://www.instagram.com/pippagrange/?hl=en

Charlotte’s proposal for the Vaughan Williams Foundation:

“I found Imogen’s story and conversation with Pippa incredibly moving, as I wholly empathised with the notion of perfectionism, delivery of excellence and artistic expectation in relation to my journey as a music creator. I was inspired by Imogen’s openness to gaining a different perspective - in particular looking for answers in an area outside of music - to enrich, enliven and empower her practice, allowing her to reconnect with herself, her instrument and her audience.

‘…To Stay Open…’ will be a work based in connection: skin to brass, soundwave to space, head to heart. Through developing melodic gestures that flow with increasing confidence, ownership and individuality, the notions of ‘being open’ and ‘connection through creation’ are explored and joyfully celebrated.”

My visit with Pippa, January 2019

Charlotte and me, celebrating our award from the Vaughan Williams Foundation!

Blog Post for YCAT

In December I wrote a blog post for YCAT (Young Classical Artists Trust), about the concerts that my husband and I gave for the neighbours on our street during Lockdown.

The original post can be found here: https://www.ycat.co.uk/blog/guest-blog-imogen-whitehead

When the Coronavirus pandemic hit the UK in March 2020, live music came to a standstill. Every performance engagement fell out of the diary, with no clue as to when work might start up again. My husband Rupert (a trombonist in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and I (a freelance trumpet player) decided that we needed to create a project for ourselves that would give us focus for our practice and motivation to stay in shape over the months ahead.

We chose to write a letter to all of the neighbours on our street, introducing ourselves as professional musicians with some time on our hands..! We’d been living on our street for about 6 months and had already met a couple of neighbours, but we saw this as a great opportunity to get to know more people and to hopefully raise morale in our neighbourhood. We asked people to send us requests of their favourite songs or pieces of music, which we would then arrange and record a video for our newly-formed road WhatsApp group. Our neighbours quickly got on board with the idea and within a week we had received multiple requests and recorded ten videos. We soon realised that our street (a quiet cul-de-sac) would be the perfect setting for an outdoor performance, so the following weekend we gave a concert on the pavement outside our house, with neighbours coming out to listen from their front gardens.

The concerts became a weekly event and, by mid-July, and we had performed 13 concerts and arranged over 130 pieces of music. These arrangements spanned a variety of genres, from classical to jazz, pop, swing, ballads, TV & film, musicals and world music – inspired by the various nationalities of our neighbours. After many weeks of performing, the government restrictions were starting to ease and the end of July seemed like the right time for the regular concerts to come to an end (for this lockdown, at least). We decided that our final concert would be a performance of our ‘Greatest Hits’ and we asked our neighbours to vote online for the songs that they’d enjoyed the most from the previous weeks. It was a wonderful and emotional concert, with word having spread around the neighbourhood and many people turning up to listen – socially-distanced, of course!

The highlight of that final concert for me was Rupert’s arrangement of a ‘Concerto for Car Horn’. This work consisted of three movements – ‘Pizzicati’ from the ballet ‘Sylvia’ by Delibes, ‘The Blue Danube’ and the ‘Sailor’s Hornpipe’ – arranged for trumpet, trombone and a well-timed car horn. A friend of ours would drive over to the concert every week with his family and they would listen from their car. He would often honk his horn during the applause at the end of a concert, and we came to realise that the horn of our friend’s car was pitched at B natural. Rupert decided to arrange ‘The Blue Danube’ so that the horn would sound in the right key when played... for its first two entries anyway! The other two movements were then arranged around it. The piece went down a storm in this concert and a video of the performance racked up thousands of views on social media. It was soon picked up by Classic FM who posted the video and wrote an article about it on their website: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/trumpet/car-horn-concerto-trombone-car-trio/

Putting on these street concerts has improved our skills of arranging, programming and performing outdoors. We now have an extensive repertoire of duets for future performances and some bookings over Christmas to play in other local streets, care homes and shopping centres. It has been truly amazing to see how music has brought people together, many of whom had lived next door to one another yet had remained strangers for years. There is now a greater sense of community in our street and we feel lucky to be surrounded by good friends who also just happen to be our neighbours! Coming up with creative ways to bring live music to people feels more important than ever and we have witnessed first-hand the incredible power of music to spread joy and encourage unity in such difficult times. We are certainly glad that we sent that letter.

Memorising Mozart

Later this week I’ll begin rehearsals with Aurora Orchestra for some upcoming concerts in Singapore (April) and around the UK (June). We’ll be performing a brilliant programme including Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. However anyone who’s heard of Aurora Orchestra will be aware of their unique and pioneering practice of playing symphonies from memory! These concerts are no different and we’ll be playing both the Mozart symphony and a short encore withoit music. I thought I’d share my process for how I have gone about memorising the Mozart in case it might be interesting or helpful for anyone else...

I have performed solo pieces from memory many times, and I’ve always enjoyed the freedom it brings. When you don't have the music in front of you, you are forced to stay present and only think about what’s coming immediately next, rather than perhaps dwelling on previous moments that didn’t go so well or worrying about difficult passages ahead. Having seen Aurora perform live a few times, I’ve loved feeling this freedom and energy exude from the stage: levels of communication sky-rocket as eyes dart around to find each other and smiles are shared between every member of the orchestra.

Not having to use music stands or chairs also gives the orchestra complete flexibility in their formation and freedom to move around the stage. I remember watching an Aurora concert a couple of years ago where the orchestra dispersed around the hall and performed the last movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 as an encore in amongst the audience. It was a totally thrilling experience even as an orchestral musician myself, so I was excited to be asked to play in these concerts and be presented with the challenge of memorising a symphony. 

And a challenge it certainly is..!  I’m not sure if I’ve ever actively tried to memorise a piece before - it’s usually been a much more organic process of just playing it through countless times in my practice and then gradually being able to remember it. I didn’t know the Mozart symphony very well before I was offered this work, so I listened to it and realised pretty quickly that I was going to need some sort of memorisation plan.

I decided to follow a similar method to one I’ve used before when learning a new piece of contemporary music: I look through the music to find any obvious sections, give each section a number, and then start by working on the last section. Once I’ve got to grips with that one, I move back and start learning the previous section. Then I can play both of the last two sections together. I work backwards slowly like this, constantly re-playing the material I’ve just learned, until I reach the beginning of the piece. It’s always a great feeling to know that once I’ve reached bar one, I can already play the rest of the piece!

I thought that this method could work well for memorisation too, since I could keep reinforcing the sections I’d already memorised whilst adding a new section on to the front each time. I found a recording I liked and made a note of where each section started in that recording. This meant that I could then skip very easily to whichever section I was learning and play along with my headphones on to test myself.

I know from previous experience that my brain responds well to colour, so I dug out my colouring pencils and assigned a colour to each section. I then made a ‘colour map’ (scroll down for photo) to help guide me through each movement: if I could recall the musical material from each colour section then I’d know that I’d learnt it properly. The colour map has been a great resource for testing myself - I can avoid having the notes in front of me but can use the map to stay on track whilst I’m still in the process of learning the part completely from memory. It’s also been crucial to learn how many bars rest there are between each section so that I don’t come ploughing in in the wrong place!

In these concerts with Aurora, I’ll be playing 2nd trumpet and will be using a natural (baroque) trumpet, similar to the type of trumpets that Mozart would have written for, but at modern pitch. Trumpets in Mozart’s day didn’t have use of the full chromatic scale - they could only play a limited selection of natural harmonics (such as bottom G, then C, E, G, C etc.) - so they were used harmonically, more like timpani. Therefore, one of the most challenging aspects of learning this part has been the similarity of the material. Even though string and woodwind players will have to play many more notes than trumpeters in this piece, their notes are often in tunes which can be easier to remember. Since I don’t really have any tunes of my own, I’ve had to try and find rhythmic patterns in my part and have used various lines/drawings to highlight the shapes in my music. 

I am really enjoying the challenge of learning this symphony from memory and it has been immensely satisfying to gradually get each of the three movements under my belt (thankfully we have the second movement off!). I’ve found that time has flown by when I’ve been doing this type of practice, but I’ve also had to take regular breaks to allow my brain to process it all… I hope it’s been interesting for you to read how I’ve gone about the memorising process and please do send me any tips or methods that have worked for you!

Reflections on Stephen Dodgson’s Trumpet Concerto

In March this year, I performed the Dodgson Trumpet Concerto at a recital for the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival. When I notified the Stephen Dodgson Charitable Trust about this, Leonora Dawson-Bowling asked if I would be interested in writing a blog post about my experience of the piece. She sent me a list of questions which I decided to turn into a Q&A-style post, so here it is...

How did Stephen come to write the trumpet concerto for you? Was it a collaborative process?

From the ages of 14 to 18, I was a member of the Thames Youth Orchestra, founded and conducted by Simon Ferris. When members finish school and leave the orchestra, there is often an opportunity for them to perform as a soloist with TYO. For my ‘farewell’ concerto, Simon suggested – amazingly - that the orchestra commission a new piece. He had come to know Stephen’s music through a friend, the guitarist Jonathan Leathwood, and had subsequently programmed a performance of Stephen’s flute concerto for a TYO tour. A keen advocate for youth orchestras, Stephen came to workshop the music in rehearsal with TYO, and Simon said that seeing Stephen at work in that environment made him an obvious choice when thinking about the new commission.

Due to Stephen’s poor health at the time, the composition of the concerto was very much a collaborative process between Stephen and Simon. Stephen, who was often in hospital, would come up with ideas and sketches and Simon would help to stitch them together. After I’d received the completed concerto and spent a couple of weeks learning it, I accompanied Simon to Stephen’s house in Barnes, where I performed the concerto to him. It was so interesting to spend this time with Stephen and discuss aspects of the piece like dynamics and articulation. The part was already very idiomatically written so we made barely any changes and Stephen gave me a lot of freedom to choose how I wanted to play it.

When did you first perform the concerto and who with?

I gave the world premiere of the trumpet concerto with the Thames Youth Orchestra in Croatia, on my final summer tour in August 2011. We then gave the piece its second outing, and the UK Premiere, in Kingston Upon Thames in September 2011 with Stephen and Jane in attendance. That was a very special occasion indeed and my last concert as a member of TYO.

Since then, I have performed the concerto with an orchestra at the Royal Academy of Music (March 2015), and in recitals at St James Piccadilly (2016) and Lincoln Drill Hall (2019) in an arrangement for trumpet and piano.

How would you describe the concerto?

The concerto is in three movements, and is scored for trumpet and small orchestra: strings (1st movement), woodwind (2nd movement) and tutti for the 3rd movement. Stephen was once quoted as saying, “I’ve developed a particular fondness for music which outwardly has the manner of a divertimento, but inwardly is quite otherwise”. I think that the trumpet concerto is a perfect example of this: there is a lightness and energy in the outer movements, yet the second movement takes on a much more serious and poignant tone.

The first movement contains quick fanfare flourishes and cadenzas in the trumpet part. In stark contrast, the second movement, an instance of genuine chamber music scored only for trumpet, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, inhabits an altogether different space. This movement is a re-working of ‘Philip’s Repose’, a piece written by Stephen for the funeral of his dear friend, the great trumpeter Philip Jones. It’s a very special movement to play - even more so it because I was invited by Jane to perform it at Stephen’s own memorial service in 2013.

The woodwinds then join the strings and trumpet for the third movement. Stephen has been described as ‘an English Stravinsky’ and I think that character is particularly evident in this quirky, final movement, especially through his use of staccato and accents.

My favourite moments in the concerto include the freedom of the unaccompanied, opening fanfares,  the big sweeping intervals in the second movement, and finally the very last few bars. The ending of the piece is somewhat throw-away, which is actually quite characteristic of Stephen’s music and hopefully leaves the unsuspecting audience wanting more!

How does it feel having a piece especially written for you and to be the first person to perform it, as opposed to an existing work?

It feels incredibly special to have had this concerto written for me. It actually also turned out to be Stephen’s last composition, and so it is even more of an honour to be the recipient and to have had the chance to work on it with him.

I have since gone on to perform various other new works, but this concerto will always be my most treasured commission. I suppose there is a sense of ownership in that it is written in a way that suits me and my playing, and I’m the only trumpeter who’s played it. However I think it would be wonderful to hear it played by someone else, and to enjoy the different interpretation that they would bring. I’m delighted that we’ve now been able to publish the concerto and I hope that it will be performed by many trumpeters in the years to come.

How different does it feel in the arrangement for trumpet and piano?

In order to create more opportunities for the concerto to be performed, it seemed necessary to have a version for trumpet and piano. It’s much more likely that it could be performed in this arrangement, so I’m pleased that we’ve been able to make this happen. My regular duo partner, pianist Jennifer Hughes, received a reduction of the orchestral score and re-worked it so that it felt more suited to the piano.

Performing the concerto with the piano is certainly a different feeling to performing it with an orchestra. For instance, there are moments of shimmering strings and long sustained notes in the original score which are more difficult to recreate on the piano. The second movement also feels much more like a solo piece than chamber music in this arrangement. The timbre of the woodwind instruments blend so beautifully with the trumpet and it is can be challenging to match the sound as easily with the piano.

Do you have any recommendations for someone who'd like to learn the concerto?

I think the concerto would be a fantastic piece for students to learn. It’s not too technically demanding and not too tiring (it’s only about 10 mins long in total), so it’s ideal for a recital programme. The fanfares in the first movement especially make it a good concert-opener. 

I’ve found that it can be easy to take the outer movements too fast – they actually sit so much better at a slightly slower speed. The middle movement, on the other hand, works really nicely at a more flowing tempo, so this doesn’t need to be too slow.

Any other thoughts?!

I am hoping to find funding to record the concerto in the not-too-distant future. I think it would be a brilliant way to spread the word about the concerto and to hopefully inspire other trumpeters to want to learn it and perform it themselves.

This blog post is also available on the Stephen Dodgson Charitable Trust’s website:  http://www.stephendodgson.com/imogen-hancock-reflections-on-the-trumpet-concerto/

Me and Stephen Dodgson after the UK premiere in Kingston-Upon-Thames (September 2011) 

Preparing for a Première (Part 2)

In this second post, I wanted to give you an insight into the various techniques and sounds effects that Alex has incorporated into the ‘Threads’ flugelhorn concerto.

Quarter-Tone Tuning:

Instead of the usual chromatic scale consisting of semitones, this concerto is based on a scale of quarter tones. To achieve these quarter tone movements, I have found alternative fingerings which all use the 3rd valve, so that I can slightly change the pitch using the 3rd valve slide trigger. If I can’t find an alternative fingering for a note (low C, for example) I have to alter the pitch by just slightly tightening or loosening my lips. 

Pitch Bending:

Similarly to moving in quarter tones, sometimes the music is notated as below and this means I have to move the 3rd valve slide whilst playing, which gradually lowers the pitch of the notes. Thankfully the note E-flat can be played using valves 2 and 3, so I can use my 3rd slide trigger to do this.

Flutter Tongue:

Flutter tonguing is a technique which involves rolling your ‘r’s whilst playing a note. It creates a wild, raspy sound and is a technique used quite often for the trumpet. It gets harder to flutter tongue as you get higher up in the range and more difficult to switch quickly between this technique (flt.) and normal playing (ord.), so the passage below poses quite a challenge..!

Whistle-Tone:

This is the term that Alex and I came up with to describe a particular sound that we liked. This quiet and extremely high pitched ‘whistle’ sound is produced by squeezing air through lips which are as tightly pursed as possible. It creates a wailing sound which floats above the orchestral texture.

Multiphonics:

On a brass instrument, it is possible to play more than one pitch at once by singing or humming whilst playing - this is called multiphonics. It is quite a strange sensation to detach your singing voice from the air which you’re using to blow down the instrument, but the effect can be extraordinary. Alex has used multiphonics mainly in the 3rd movement of this concerto and it is notated as below - I play the bottom line on the flugelhorn and simultaneously sing the top line. The sound can become distorted and fractured if the two notes are only a small interval apart and it sounds sort of bubbly. But, if the tuning is right, you can also produce beautiful chords where the natural harmonics create three or more notes.

Pinched Tone:

Alex was keen to experiment with the spectrum of sound distortion that could be created on the flugelhorn, so he sometimes asks for the sound to have a Pinched Tone. By literally pinching your lips together inside the mouthpiece you can create a gritty, impure tone and the dotted notation below indicates the changing volumes that Alex wanted. 

Tongue Stops / Valve Clicks

Tongue stopping on the trumpet is where you cut the air off very suddenly and block the sound. You can try this by whispering the word “hut” as fast and short as possible but blocking the “t” at the end so much that it sounds like a “d”. If you then do this into the trumpet you can produce a popping sound and use your tongue to change the speed. Alex also asked me to do some valve clicks alongside the tongue stopping. Since my 2nd and 3rd valves are already down for the tongue stopped D#’s, I can flick the 1st valve down at various points to create another new effect. The slanted lined above the notes in the example indicate speeding up and slowing down at the same rate as the crescendo and diminuendo.

Natural Harmonics:

The trumpet is based on the harmonic series. By pressing one particular combination of valves, you can play many different notes just by changing the tightness of your lips and the speed of your air. At the bottom end of the register, the notes are further apart and can only be played with certain valve combinations. However as you move higher up the scale, you start to be able to play some notes with alternative combinations, and this is even more the case the higher you go. In ‘Threads’, Alex really utilises the alternative fingerings, the reason being that they are naturally a bit out of tune and so they fit with the quarter tone scale that the piece is based on. Alex notates the natural harmonics/alternative fingerings as below:

To make sense of the rapidly changing fingerings (many of which I’m not used to playing), I decided to colour-code my part, giving each valve combination its own colour. This meant that eventually I didn’t have to read the numbers but could just see the colour and know which valves I needed to press! 

It is certainly a challenge to try and master these extended techniques and use them all during one piece, but this is one of the many reasons why I love playing new music. It is interesting and satisfying to work out a way of playing something that seemed uncomfortable or even impossible at first, amd to hear the effect once it’s all put together with the orchestra makes it truly worthwhile. 

If you have any questions about these techniques or the processes behind them, please do get in touch! For more information about ‘Threads’, check out:

Project Website: https://brusenta.wixsite.com/ctd2

Getting to know trumpeter Imogen Hancock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2QxX4MPd8

Preparing for a Première (Part 1)

I've have had the privilege of premiering a number of works so far in my career: Stephen Dodgson's Trumpet Concerto, Concertino by Corrado Maria Saglietti and Trinculo by Sally Beamish to name a few. However I have never been so involved in the process from initial idea to first performance as with my latest project: a Flugelhorn Concerto by Aleksandr Brusentsev entitled Threads.

Ahead of the performance next Thursday (25th January), I thought I'd share some background information about the project (Part 1) and my thoughts about how I go about preparing a new piece/what you can expect to hear in the performance (Part 2).

Let me transport you back to the summer of 2016, when this project first began: the Rio Olympics were in full swing, the UK was still in the aftershock of Brexit and America was yet to choose its new President... I was contacted by American composer Alex Brusentsev, who asked if he could write a Flugelhorn Concerto for me. Alex and I studied together at the Royal Academy of Music and had previously worked together on a solo trumpet piece of his called '...what's left when...' (see blog post and video here). I already knew that I liked Alex's writing style and was interested to see what he could do for the flugelhorn - an instrument seriously lacking in original repertoire.

For those who aren't sure what a flugelhorn actually is, it is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, but with wider tubing and therefore a mellow, rich sound, more similar to that of a French horn. The flugelhorn is played in exactly the same way as the trumpet, with three valves, but with a different mouthpiece and a different playing feel. It is an instrument which I absolutely love to play and so I jumped at the chance to have a concerto written for me and the flugelhorn.

Initially, Alex, Toby Thatcher (Australian conductor-extraordinaire and my former flat-mate!) and I worked on a lengthy funding application for the American Composers Forum. We were hoping to be awarded a Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund) and, thankfully, our proposal was successful. This award allowed Alex a full commission fee and also helped to fund some parts of the performance. We decided on a concert date and made enquiries about hiring venues, but it soon became clear that this funding was not going to cover the costs of venue hire, paying the musicians and recording the performance. In late 2017 we turned to the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo and, on 1st January 2018, we were overjoyed to reach our goal of £2000 thanks to many generous supporters. 

Throughout this period of fundraising, Alex was busy composing and sending me snippets of music. Despite our many Skype calls and countless emails back-and-forth, I was finding it hard to grasp the structure of the concerto and how the different sections would all fit together. However once Alex had sent me the completed part, I played it through and fell in love with the piece. It is a beautiful, interesting concerto, full of powerful writing. Alex really understands the many unique qualities of the flugelhorn’s sound and incorporates a huge range of extended and unusual techniques into the music... Look out for Part 2 of this blog post coming soon, where I will explain my processes and techniques behind learning this new piece!

More concert info and tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ensemble-eroica-threads-tickets-32549482378

Project Website: https://brusenta.wixsite.com/ctd2

Getting to know trumpeter Imogen Hancock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2QxX4MPd8

Interview with Håkan Hardenberger

Recently I was fortunate enough to spend a week at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, participating in masterclasses with Håkan Hardenberger.  Described by The Times as 'the best trumpet player in the galaxy', Håkan was kind enough to let me pick his brains on his approach to trumpet playing, music and life in general...  
 

What are your top tips for daily practice? 

Practise softly. Really learn how to use your ears, because those are our most important tools. We have lips and fingers and lungs that we use but, without the ears, it all just becomes sport and athletics. If we let that side of things decide, then playing becomes pointless and too difficult.
 

Do you still get nervous for performances? And, if so, are there any particular things that you think or do to help deal with those nerves?

I do get nervous and I'm quite thankful when I do because it means that it still matters to me. You have to learn how to use the adrenaline as fuel. There's something particular about Classical music that's so much about doing it 'right'. We feel a great responsibility both towards composers, towards our teachers and even towards ourselves somehow. We spend all of these hours working to make it perfect, but there's an element of perfectionism that sometimes goes against music-making. Even jazz and folk musicians will be nervous under certain circumstances, but I think that in Classical music-making, the reach for perfection is too much. The important thing to realise is that, once you've achieved what you think is perfection, the standard has already changed - the goal has moved even further away - so it's mission impossible!

 
If you could talk to your younger self now, when your career was just starting, what would you say? Is there anything you wish you'd known? 

I saw a wonderful interview once with Woody Allen where they asked him a similar question. He said "I see all of these colleagues who are asked that question and they say 'Oh I don't regret anything, I would do everything the same again'. But for me... I regret almost everything!" 

I'll tell you what I believe: there's a Swedish physicist, Bodil Jonsson, and she's written some very nice things about time and how we deal with it. She gives a beautiful picture of a tree and how it has its rings inside to show its age. Of course, I am now on the outer rings! But you carry the inner rings with you. You are a slice of that tree - time doesn't go along the tree, it goes through the tree. So, at the same time that you are the outer ring now, you are also the inner ones. Whatever you did then is a part of you now.

I had really good advice - I had wonderful, helpful parents and wonderful teachers. I also think I had a talent - call it intuition or whatever - to find people with whom to 'take the elevator'. People like Elgar Howarth, who suddenly appeared when I was about 20 and about to start my career, and there he was. He was much older than me - as old as my father - but he became a great friend and mentor and he would just say these perfect things to help me. So I was extremely lucky in that respect.

One thing that you don't understand when you're young is that you do get older. When you're young, keeping fit is not so difficult but, if you want to stay as fit when you get older, you really have to work at it. I remember saying in an interview once that I was guessing I'd sort of peak at around 35 and from then on it would just be downhill... but thankfully that hasn't happened! 
 

You've mentioned a couple of times this week about trumpet players 'diseases'... what are the most common symptoms that you see in trumpeters around the world?

1. Playing too loudly.
2. Not listening to themselves. 
3. As soon as we see something that looks like it's out of a March (triplets or dotted rhythms), we suddenly start to disrespect all normal musical rules! That is very common. Why do we always divide sextuplets into three, for example?
    

How do you balance the huge amounts of practice and travel with family life and finding time for things other than music? 

I've found that this is something that also really takes practice. What you have to realise is that the amount of practice never gets less. If you want to keep improving or maintain a high level, you have to stay disciplined and the hours don't decrease, it just continues. Your loved ones will know that and know when to leave you on your own. When I was younger, I found it really difficult to find the 'off' button. I couldn't even switch off for short periods at all, I was just 'on' all the time. I still have an element of that, but I've become better at finding the 'off' button. And, once you really find it and you have a long holiday, then it's very hard to find the 'on' button again!
 

 Which other musicians, past or present, would you recommend listening to for inspiration?

I would give a more general answer: if the readers here are trumpet players, listen to non-trumpet players. I mean, of course, listen to trumpet players too, but also listen to other instrumentalists. Most importantly, listen to things live. Go to concerts, go to rehearsals. Meet the performers and hear their sounds live. However good the recording equipment is, no one can ever completely capture that sound and they certainly can't capture the electricity that happens in a performance. That's the most important thing. 

Also listen to non-classical musicians and not only hear things and like things, but try to think about why you like things. What is it that grabs you? What is it that they do? Read books, look at paintings, see nature. I get depressed when I go out running and I see other people running with earphones and looking down and just punishing themselves... not seeing the blue sky or hearing the birds. Life is there to be lived, even more so if we are doing something that is tough and disciplined and takes a lot of you. Then it's even more important to enjoy life. 

The week of masterclasses at Snape Maltings was organised and funded by the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme.

The Reform of Rank Bajin

I was reminded last week via my 'Facebook Memories' that it's been five years since I performed 'The Reform of Rank Bajin' by John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Academy of Music and Beccles Music Festival. 

It was at the beginning of my second year at RAM that this piece was included in our orchestral audition pack. The first thing I noticed when I opened the music was a request by the composer for the performer to dress up in a cowboy-style cape, mask and hat to look like Rank Bajin, the resident villain from a comic strip by Scottish cartoonist Bud Neill:

A cartoon strip featuring Bud Neill's resident villain, Rank Bajin

I was never a fan of drama lessons at school but, for some reason, wearing a mask and playing a character from behind my trumpet didn't seem so daunting... I decided that this was a challenge I wanted to take on. I turned up to my audition at the Academy in September and, much to the astonishment and amusement of the panel, entered the room fully dressed up and in character! I then went on to perform the piece from memory and, since the actual performance was only a week away, this gave me the edge. 

Performing at Beccles Music Festival, September 2012

In 'The Reform of Rank Bajin', Geddes asks for a whole array of unusual requests from the performer: shouting "Yee-Ha!" like a cowboy; erupting into evil laughter; whinnying like a horse through the trumpet; gazing longingly into people's eyes as you walk through the audience at the end... the list goes on. After receiving some coaching on these elements from Elgar (Gary) Howarth and Mark David (Head of Brass), I realised that the more I just went for it, the less embarrassed I was going to feel! Come the first performance I was a fully fledged cowgirl, complete with black sparkly hen-party hat... and I absolutely loved it.

I haven't yet recorded my own version of this piece, but there is a fantastic recording on iTunes/Spotify by Mark O'Keeffe which I'd highly recommend. There is also another great performance on YouTube by Nick Walkley where you can see/hear his playing accompanied by some of Bud Neill's original cartoon strips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkG2VbOIlvE

The Multi-Story Orchestra

As you stand and wait for a train at Peckham Rye station, the last thing you might expect to hear wafting across the platforms is the sound of live classical music... But that's exactly what happens every time that The Multi-Story Orchestra (conducted by Chris Stark) puts on a project. Why? Because their main performance venue is the top floor of a brightly decorated multi-story car park in Peckham, of course..!

Earlier this month I performed with the Multi-Story Orchestra for the first time. The repertoire for our two concerts was Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring - poignant because this was also in the programme of the orchestra's first ever performance. I was particularly looking forward to this week of rehearsals because I'd actually already worked intensively on The Rite of Spring earlier in the year with the Britten-Pears Orchestra. We'd performed it at the Royal Festival Hall under conductor Marin Alsop, and I'd spent that project learning the 2nd trumpet part inside-out. This time, however, I would be playing Principal. 

Alongside our performance of the music, we prepared 'Living Programme Notes' for the audience. These were short presentations about the music which were to be shown to the audience during the hour before each performance. Both the orchestra and the score were split into eight sections and each group was given a passage of music to present in a fun and interactive way. My group was given 'The Glorification of the Chosen One' (the second section of Part 2) and it was fantastic to see the audience throwing themselves into learning the dance moves we'd come up with to show the difficult rhythms in this passage. It also gave us a rare chance to interact with the hundreds of audience members before the concert, and it was then palpable just how intensely they were watching and listening to our performance.

The Peckham car park felt like the perfect (albeit rather cold!) setting to perform a piece like The Rite of Spring, with the car park's primitive feel, booming acoustic and dramatic views of the London skyline. This was one of the final performances of The Multi-Story Orchestra's 2017 season, but they'll be back in 2018 with many more exciting programmes in store!

Visit https://www.multi-story.org.uk/ to find out more.

Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside!

Earlier this week I gave a lunchtime recital at the Chapel Royal Brighton, alongside my pianist duo partner Jen Hughes. Our programme was full of French repertoire, including works by Claude Debussy, Philippe Gaubert, Maurice Emmanuel and Jacques Ibert.

I have actually performed at the Chapel Royal before, four years ago, and I remembered its wonderful acoustic from then. I decided that it was the perfect setting to debut my new flugelhorn in both Debussy's 'Rapsodie' and 'She' by Charles Aznavour.  I presented our programme by speaking in between each piece - both to inform the audience about the music and to give myself a few tactical breaks..! Engaging with our audience in this way is important to me and it's one of the things I enjoy most about giving a recital.

Jen warming up in the beautiful Chapel Royal, Brighton

I still get quite nervous when preparing and performing a recital as, like most brass players, I am often concerned with stamina and am just hoping that it will all go to plan... but it's a great feeling to perform a recital outside of music college or a competition, where there is no final mark at the end of it! It's both liberating and fun to play music that you've chosen because you love it, and I find that the audience always responds well to that.

Jen and I were pleased to perform to a full audience, many of whom we had a chance to meet afterwards. One audience member was actually a local critic, and we were delighted to receive his review of the concert: "...Hancock's in a class of her own; Hughes - an incisive soloist herself - gives virtuosic support..." (Simon Jenner).

Enjoying some time on Brighton beach before heading back to London

...what's left when...

In October 2016, I collaborated once again with my American composer friend Aleksandr Brusentsev. It had been just over two years since I first performed one of Alex's works - '...what's left when...' - which he wrote for me as part of his final Masters project at the Academy. I then used this piece for my own Final Recital in May 2015 and it has since been through a number of revisions.

Having reached its final incarnation in 2016, Alex decided that he wanted to record ...what's left when... and create a film to go with it. He got in touch with British filmmaker Sky Ainsbury and together they came up a concept for the film. 

As soon as Alex landed in London, we began rehearsals to prepare for our recording at the Royal Academy of Music. The piece is full of complex rhythms and extended techniques but, the more I got to know it, the clearer and longer the musical lines felt. My aim was to get my performance to a point where I could accurately play what was on the page yet be able to lose myself in the music and not have to think about specific notes or techniques.

An adjustable cup mute is used for the whole piece, creating both gritty and mellow sounds at different points. Alex used a lot of quarter tones and pitch bending, as well as asking for half-valves (creating a choked sound), valve clicks, tongue clicks, pedal notes and flutter tongue (rolling your r's as you play). I highlighted each of these techniques in different colours, so that my brain would recognise what to do as the music was flying past! 

The week after the recording session, I met with Alex, Sky and his team (cameramen, a choreographer and an actor) for a day of filming in central London. I felt overwhelmed by the huge amount of energy and time being invested into this project by so many people, and it was amazing to see Alex and Sky's vision coming to life.

Whilst the film crew set up the main room, Alex and I went next door with Siobhan (choreographer) and Stephen (actor). We watched as the two of them listened to our recording and let the music dictate their movements. Before filming began, I also gave a live performance of ...what's left when... for the crew, to enhance the raw emotions of the music and keep it fresh in their minds during filming.

I feel so grateful to have worked with a composer like Alex, who hands over complete ownership of his music to the performer and doesn't try to impose his own ideas on the performance. During our hours of recording and filming, Alex didn't check the score once. He trusted me to play what he'd written but in a way that was meaningful to me, and this made it a truly rewarding experience.

I am delighted to finally be able to share the result of our project. Have a watch of the video and, if you enjoy it, please do give it a share. I really recommend listening to this through headphones and immersing yourself in the video right until the end. (Be aware - if your volume settings are on loud then the first trumpet entry might be a bit of a shock..!) 

Click here to visit Alex's website and discover more of his work.

Click here to find out more about an upcoming live performance of the music alongside the film.

Oslo: A Reflection

One month after returning from Oslo, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on my trip. The first night that I arrived in early January, I sat in my apartment looking at the calendar on my phone and saw that it was day 1/49. I was excited to finally be in Oslo, but 7 weeks was already starting to feel like a very long time... In reality, the weeks absolutely flew by!

The changing views from my kitchen window

I was out there to study privately with a number of different teachers - primarily soloist Tine Thing Helseth, Brynjar Kolsbergsrud (Oslo Philharmonic) and Roeland Henkens (Den Norske Opera/Ballet). During my 7 week stay, I had a total of 17 trumpet lessons and found each one inspiring. 

There was a lot to process from the many lessons and discussions I had and I was given much food for thought about my future. One lesson I had was with American trumpeter and composer Tony Plog. Tony's advice is to "follow your bliss" - to do what inspires you and makes you happy... "a career will usually follow!" As a new freelancer, I'm enjoying taking on all sorts of opportunities, as I never know what they'll lead to or who I might meet. However Tony's motto has made me more conscious of where I want to invest my energy.

Sognsvann Lake, Cross-Country Skiing and Oslo Opera House/Fjord

I found that I loved the independence and freedom of living in my own apartment. It was about 10 minutes by bus from the centre of Oslo and I enjoyed hosting friends for dinner and exploring many parts of the city. I was fortunate enough to be given access to Oslo's English Church (St Edmund's) where I practised every day and also played in a couple of their services.

A recent United Nations report shows Norway as officially being the happiest place on Earth... and I can totally believe it. Oslo is the most beautiful place I've ever been and I didn't come across one unfriendly Norwegian person during my entire trip. The sunrises and sunsets were picture perfect and the snowy scenes and cityscapes could have been from postcards. I didn't learn much of the language in the end (since almost everyone there speaks impeccable English) but, being blonde, I was very often spoken to in Norwegian!

I'm so grateful to the Royal Philharmonic Society for supporting me and my trip - both financially and personally. I originally received the Julius Isserlis Award towards studies in Germany but I ended up taking a different route and was supported by the RPS throughout. It's been a perfect example of one door closing and a better one opening, and I couldn't imagine a more wonderful experience than my trip to Oslo.