http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:44:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Although they may look like a modern invention mutes have been around for hundreds of years. The first documented use of the Trumpet mute was in the Toccata from Monteverdi’s Opera L’Orfeo (1607). The mutes used at this time changed the pitch of the trumpet up a tone, ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/10/denis-wick-mutes/ On Saturday 9th August, the group will be travelling up to Bicester for the Bicester Jazz Festival 2008. This week we have been rehearsing with Yazz Ahmed, a jazz trumpeter who has recently exited the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied on the postgraduate jazz course. Check ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/08/bella-at-bicester-jazz-festival-2008/ Last week Bella Tromba travelled up to the lovely spa town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire to take part in the Harrogate International Festival. Steve Burke joined us again on percussion. Having percussion with us once more gave us another chance to play the fantastic ‘Telos 135′ by Sir Peter ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/08/harrogate-festival-and-mute-madness/ On Friday we visited the Deal Festival to give a concert as part of their excellent music festival. Deal is a beautiful small costal town with a very English stoney beach and plenty of chip shops. Paul Max Edlin is the Festival Director and a composer who trained at the ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/07/deal-festival-and-alison-balsom/ For the Deal and Harrogate festivals we are playing some very fine British brass music, both old and new. Maxwell Davies’ trumpet quartet Telos 135 and Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary will benefit from the addition of timpani to our usual line up of four trumpets. Purcell ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/06/something-old-and-something-new/ Last week saw Bella Tromba perform at The Corn Exchange in Newbury as part of the annual Newbury Spring Festival. This is a fantastic festival with a really varied programme, other artists performing there this year included Guitarist John Williams, English Chamber Orchestra, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Fine Arts Brass ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/05/newbury-spring-festival/ Vickie recently stood in for Richard Marshall of Sonar Brass at a birthday party concert for Giles Whittome in Bassingbourn, and Giles is a maker and collector, as well as a player, of unusual brass instruments. The quintet played its last number on flugophone (a flugel made in saxophone ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/05/giles-whittome-designs-some-unusual-instruments/ We are currently in the run up to a summer crammed with Music Festivals, as you can see by our concert listing, we have Newbury coming up very soon and Deal following swiftly behind. We have had several lengthy rehearsals over the past few weeks on new pieces for these ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/04/music-festivals-for-bella-tromba/ Happily many couples like to include a trumpet at their wedding. It creates a sense of occasion and there is a wealth of great and well known voluntaries to choose from. As soloists we all play at weddings and as a group the quartet played at a lovely wedding in ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/04/wedding-music/ I hope you all have a fantastic Easter! We have all been really busy in the lead up to Easter, as a group and individually. With Easter being so early, lots of concerts have been crammed into a very short space of time. The weekend before Easter was extremely busy ... http://bellatromba.co.uk/blog/2008/03/happy-easter/