Bella Tromba in Wales

Bella Tromba travelled up to Wales on the afternoon of Sunday 11th June, in the roasting heat, with a car filled to the brim ready for our busy and exciting week ahead. My car has never been so full we had with us about 10 trumpets between us, mutes, hosepipes, clothes and ball dresses; there was not an inch to spare! Jo was squeezed in the back, I was driving and Clare was my chief navigator (as she is the only one who can read a map!). Vicky came down from Manchester on the train, which was probably a good thing as there was not even space for her on the way up!

We started our week with three days of Live Music Now! concerts. We played in a complete mix of special schools and pupil referral units, in the areas surrounding Cardiff and Newport. We gave interactive concerts at each of the schools. The concerts changed depending on the needs of the school and the age range. We included a full range of music, from pieces that they would recognize including Harry Potter, to Bach right through to contemporary music and jazz. We explained as we went along how our instruments worked, this included a lovely rendition of Handel’s Water Music by Clare and Vicky played on hosepipes! We got some fantastic responses, with the children getting fully involved in the music, playing percussion along with us. They were also amazing listeners and it was really great to play amongst the children as they love seeing the instruments up close.

On Wednesday afternoon, after playing in the schools we moved our base from Cardiff to Treorchy, where we stayed for the rest of the week. On Thursday we gave a recital at the Parc and Dare Theatre. Our recitals always provoke great interest as most of the audience have never heard a trumpet quartet and they are nicely surprised by the variety we can create and by the range of music we have. In amongst our activities we managed to fit in a few rehearsals to look at new pieces that we have found and ones that we have had arranged for us.

Then the Welsh Brass Arts Festival began, kicking off with the concert “Electric Brass” with the Parc and Dare Band. Before the concert Bella Tromba played at the pre-show presentation. “Electric Brass” was a boundary breaking concert, showing contemporary music in a new light, including new music especially composed for the event. The audience was not familiar with this type of music and found the concert highly enjoyable. It included Steve Bingham playing electric violin, which was fascinating and Catrin Finch on harp. We shared a dressing room with Catrin, which was fun and she was very friendly and interesting to talk to and she is an amazing performer. We opened this concert with “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.5” by Joan Towers from very high up in the gods of the theatre (good job none of us are scared of heights as it was really high!).

On Saturday morning we began by recording with Tim A. Duncan. We recorded some of our own pieces and we recorded some fanfares from “Swan Lake”, which will be used in the show on ice. This show is starting in Sydney Opera House in a couple of weeks and then will be in the UK at the Wales Millennium Centre for three weeks over Christmas.

The Festival then came to a close with the “Big Anthem Fawr” concert, which featured Bella Tromba as soloists, Parc and Dare Band and the Ravensburg Stadtorchestra from Germany. The first half closed with Sword and the Crown by Edward Gregson. We were playing the off-stage parts, from the balcony in the theatre. Then we made a mad dash to the dressing rooms to put on our ball dresses for the second half. Bella Tromba featured as soloists, playing “Concert Gallop”, the Harry James Trumpet Concerto and finished with “Bugler’s Holiday”, arranged for the four of us by Clare in between doing our Live Music Now concerts! We really enjoyed playing in front of the band and we had some lovely comments from the audience afterwards. We came back on at the very end of the concert to play the fanfares for the national anthem. After the concert we went along to the reception where talked to a number of people, including the composer Mick Wilson who was very interesting. We also talked to the German orchestra and they enjoyed our playing and were interested in having us travel over there sometime next year, which would be fun.

We ended our tour in Wales at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, giving our own recital. It was lovely to play there and lots of people stopped to listen. We played a huge variety of pieces, including a few new pieces. We also got some good pictures of us during and after we played outside the Millennium Centre. Then it was back into the cramped car (we left some things behind so that Vicky could fit in) for our long drive home, arriving back very tired but after a really enjoyable week!