Bella Tromba…by Royal Appointment!

Last week was an exciting and varied week for Bella Tromba. Monday saw us at a Live Music Now training day on working with Young Offenders and Youth Offending Teams. It was a really interesting day split into two sections. The first session was lead by two members of a Youth Offending team telling us about the young people we might be working with, giving us case studies and telling us a bit about how ‘the system’ works. The second session was lead by some Live Music Now musicians relating their experiences of working in Young Offenders Institutes and giving us some useful tips!
I would be lying if I said that initially I wasn’t apprehensive about going into a Young Offenders Institute, but now I think I’d really like to have a go, I’m sure we could make our Concerts and workshops work in this situation and I am looking forward to putting what we learnt on Monday into practise.

Tuesday took us in a completely different direction…to Windsor Castle! Bella Tromba played the opening fanfare at Live Music Now’s anniversary concert, attended by LMN patron HRH Prince Charles. The concert was right in the heart of the castle and very near the Royal families private quarters (we resisted the urge to snoop, except when we got lost - it’s a bit of a warren!).
The concert included a performance and talk by Maxim Vengerov, some children from a special needs school performing a piece with Live Music Now Artists and also an orchestra from the Royal College of Music.
After the concert we were lucky enough to be included in the line up to meet Prince Charles and as if that didn’t make us nervous enough we were standing next to Maxim Vengerov! We all managed to behave ourselves and and not get too tongue tied and even found out that in his youth Prince Charles played the Trumpet!