<![CDATA[My Site - Blog]]>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:28:44 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Busy Autumn]]>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 10:35:52 GMThttp://www.freeyourplaying.com/blog/busy-autumn
  • Following a summer playing Fidelio at Garsington Opera and Mozart’s Zaide in the Salzburg Festival, I had a quiet beginning to the Autumn. Most important for me personally was attending the funeral of Sir Roger Norrington in September. He was and is my favourite conductor to work with, seeming to make the music do exactly what it says, without any pretension or varnish. Much missed.
  • Then it was back to playing with an orchestra founded by another musical knight, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists. But thankfully without him, as he had been sacked following a well-publicised incident. We went to Rimini and St Martin-in-the-Fields for Schubert’s 5th Symphony.
  • A new orchestra for me next - I Gemelli, based in Geneva. Vivaldi’s opera Farnace, which we rehearsed in Geneva and performed in Madrid and Paris. Easy job for us horns as we were only in two numbers!
  • Then Sir JEG’s other orchestra under the Monteverdi brand - the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique for Rossini. Wonderful to play the extremely long horn in Ab basso in this.
  • Proud Dad day was October 5th. Our son Stan played in an all-star line-up of free jazz commemorating Bill Dixon, and our daughter Nona played Boulez with the London Sinfonietta.
  • Handel’s Solomon with my regular lot, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. London, Brno and Lucerne. Lovely.
  • Last night it was my first outing with the Vauxhall Band, a delightful bunch. Concertos for 3 basset-horns!
  • Coming up I am coaching a young horn quartet at Music Camp (it will be cold…), Brandenburg Concertos with Arcangelo, a big OAE tour with the wonderful András Schiff, and performance anxiety and horn coaching at Trinity Laban and the Royal College of Music. Then the normal clutch of Christmas Oratorios etc in York, Birmingham , Dublin and Kilkenny.
]]><![CDATA[November 15th, 2024]]>Fri, 15 Nov 2024 15:31:58 GMThttp://www.freeyourplaying.com/blog/november-15th-2024Here's what I'm up to at the moment and for the next few weeks:
  • Bach's Concerts avec plusieurs instruments, otherwise known as the Brandenburg Concertos, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (my main job). Performances in Manchester, Basingstoke, London and Oxford. Nice reviews so far - for instance  https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/bach-brandenburg-concertos-oae-qeh-review-forever-young. Bachtrack said the horns were "nimble" whereas The Times described us as "stroppy". I think stroppy is exactly what we should be in this piece, especially the first movement. Picture below.
  • Next I'm off to Paris to do the Brahms Requiem with the brilliant French group Pygmalion with their director Raphäel Pichon. Natural horns for this, we're doing a live recording in the excellent Paris Philharmonie and performing it in the palace at Versailles and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie too.
  • Back with the OAE in January for more stroppiness in Handel's Fireworks Music
  • A performance anxiety workshop day at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
  • Two weeks in Australia in February with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Beethoven 7th and Brahms violin concerto. Natural horns. Really looking forward to that!
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