La Scala, Milan | Alte Oper, Frankfurt | Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg | St. Martin-in-the-Fields, LondonThe third concert of our tour, featuring Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe de minuit pour Noël, [H 9], Johann Sebastian Bach’s Schwingt freudig euch empor [BWV 36c] and Bach’s Unser Mund sei voll Lachens [BWV 110] took place at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg on Saturday 14 December 2024. This

La Scala, Milan | Alte Oper, Frankfurt | Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg | St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London I rejoined the English Baroque Soloists under the direction of Christophe Rousset to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Unser Mund sei voll Lachens [BWV 110] alongside the Monteverdi Choir at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt on Sunday 8 December 2024. This was the second performance of the project,

The last few months have been quite a whirlwind—in fact, it’s been incredibly busy since January when we began rehearsing Mozart’s Così fan tutte for a staged production at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. It was great to perform this opera at the Würzburg Mozartfest with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset: we gave performances on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th June 2024 in the

As strong geomagnetic activity caused the aurora borealis to show itself over much of Britain, the Aurora Orchestra gave six colourful and mesmerising performances of Beethoven’s third (‘Eroica’) symphony for audiences in France and southeast England. We performed the symphony from memory at the Apex in Bury St. Edmunds (7 May), the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London (8 May), Snape Maltings in Suffolk

I played first trumpet in Handel’s Jephtha [HWV 70] on Sunday 17 March 2024 in Oslo Cathedral, with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques. The performance featured the singers: Jeremy Ovenden (Jephtha), Deborah Cachet (Iphis), Sophie Harmsen (Storgé), Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Zebul), Tim Mead (Hamor), Lian Wei (Angel) and the Chœur de Chambre de Namur. This performance was the last

I performed as one of the soloists in Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto [BWV 1047] with the Croatian Baroque Ensemble - Hrvatski barokni ansambl - for the second time this year. Last time, in May, I played in a programme entitled ‘Erschallet, Trompeten!’ in the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb and I had to isolate for 10 days upon my return. This time I performed in Varaždin as part

It was brilliant to return to Göttingen for the International Handel Festival in September 2021. The festival usually takes place in May each year, but it has been displaced by the coronavirus pandemic. The last time the festival took place was in May 2019, when we performed Handel’s Saul [HWV 53] in Hannoversche Münden. Getting to the first rehearsal was challenging; the Lufthansa flight

Prof. Dr. Edward Hankins Tarr (b.15/06/1936 Norwich, Connecticut, USA - d.24/03/2020 Rheinfelden, Germany) was a pioneering performer and one of the most esteemed modern scholars of the natural trumpet. His research, editions, articles, dictionary entries, and books are indispensable to any student of the trumpet or natural trumpet. His translations of Bendinelli, Fantini and Altenburg’s treatises,

Performing Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique with the Aurora Orchestra was one of the most enjoyable projects I participated in last year. It was great to return to play with the orchestra in February 2020 for music by Beethoven and Mozart. The orchestra rehearsed Beethoven’s Symphony No.1 in C [Op.21] on Wednesday 5th February 2020 at Morley College in London. We regrouped at London’s Heathrow

When I was a student at the Royal College of Music I proposed a series of classes (in 2011) that would be organised and directed by postgraduate students from the Historical Performance department. Since I had proposed the idea, I had the job of arranging the inaugural class and I could choose the repertoire myself. I chose Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Christen, ätzet diesen Tag’ [BWV 63], originally

I performed Monteverdi’s Vespers in the Swedish capital city of Stockholm on Sunday 24th March 2019. Prior to this visit I had spent only a few hours in Sweden (in Malmö, on a day trip over the railway bridge from Denmark) so I took the opportunity to extend my visit over a long weekend that tied in with the cheapest flights. This opportunity had arisen at fairly short notice and my Mum (who lives

Andrzej Kosendiak and the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble performed music by Marcin Mielczewski in two cities alongside the Vistula river in central Poland. The first concert took place in Płock Cathedral (the Bazylika Katedralna Wniebowzięcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny) on Saturday 2nd February 2019, and the second concert took place in the Great Hall of the Royal Castle in Warsaw on Sunday 3rd February

Spain is a country I have visited only twice before. The more recent trip was to Úbeda with the Academy of Ancient Music in 2013. I performed as a soloist playing Handel’s Diana cacciatrice [HWV 79] with the soprano soloist Lucy Crowe. Before that I visited Spain for the first time with Le Concert Lorrain. We finished an extensive European tour in Burgos on the 21st of December 2010 with a performance

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam Approaching Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport from the south-east gave stunning views over the meandering course of the Mekong Delta. As we descended, Ho Chi Minh City’s vast sprawl was apparent; 13.5 million inhabitants live in the metropolitan area and 8.4 million live in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) itself.

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam From Manila we flew over the South China Sea again and arrived back at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia at 17:05 on Thursday 8th November 2018. Getting through immigration had been relatively tricky here. We all had the correct documentation but the sudden deluge of our group rather overwhelmed the sole

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam As soon as our plane landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on 4th November 2018, an army of workers were waiting at the gate ready to unload our aircraft. I imagine they had at least double or triple the number of ground staff that would meet a plane landing the United Kingdom. We left to meet two coaches

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam Marking the half-way point of the tour, we arrived in the capital city of Cambodia at Phnom Penh International Airport. Two coaches, decked out with lace curtains like a Pullman carriage, transported us toward the busy city centre and our hotel. It was interesting to observe the shops and stalls at the roadside. There

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam We arrived in Vientiane at Wattay International Airport on the evening of Friday 26th October 2018. The Lao Plaza hotel was only 6km away and we checked in very efficiently upon arrival. After dropping off our luggage we left the hotel and went to find something to eat. The hotel was near Nam Phou, a square with a central

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam We arrived at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (‘Land of Gold’) airport to the East of Bangkok and met the coaches that would take us to the Swissôtel Le Concorde in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district. The scenes from the coach window were very different to Brunei’s. Even though it was 22:00 the volume of traffic was immense.

Overview | Brunei | Thailand | Laos | Cambodia | Philippines | Malaysia | Vietnam As we entered the arrival hall at Brunei International Airport we received an exceptionally warm welcome. There was a 10-metre wide banner upon which ‘Welcome Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’ had been printed, and a whole team of people had come to greet us: taking photographs of the occasion, helping us with