I joined the Royal Philharmonic (RPO) in April 1992, I joined an extremely happy and busy orchestra. The trombone section was led by the legendary Derek James, with John Sibley on 2nd and Chris McShane on Tuba. Prior to my time at the RPO, renown brass principals had included Alan Civil, Philip Jones, Elgar Howarth and James Watson. In more recent years, principal brass players include James Fountain, Jeff Bryant, John Bimson, Graham Lee, Martin Owen and Chris Parkes. As is the way with the RPO, personal changes regularly occur, the life is hard and it’s not for everyone. Always a huge amount of travelling, busy schedules but the quality and spirit of that orchestra was just amazing.
Stylistically it could change at the drop of a hat, Mahler, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Respighi, Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Britten, the French Impressionists, plenty of opera and ballet too, the list could go on and on. Additionally, there was plenty of variety through large amounts of commercial work; jingles, pop sessions, library sessions and film soundtracks.
The opportunity to travel was also another huge attraction with regular tours to the musical capitals of Europe, the Americas and the Far East. I’ve tried to list all the countries I visited - I hope I haven’t missed any…. Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Columbia, Croatia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea (South), Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, UAE, USA, Uruguay. On these RPO tours we performed at the most prestigious concert halls and festivals with the finest conductors and soloists.
The musical directors and chief conductors of note during my time there would be Vladimir Ashkenazy, André Previn, Yuri Temirkanov,Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Maxwell Davies, Leonard Slatkin, Daniele Gatti, Pinchas Zukerman, Alexander Shelley and Charles Dutoit. As I was leaving, I had the pleasure of working with their brilliant new musical director Vasily Petrenko. While in the RPO I also gave the European premiere of the Brubeck Bass Trombone Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall. During my time at the RPO, I appeared as a guest performer with a wide variety of other orchestras and ensembles; London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta, London Brass, Symphonic Brass of London and on 3 separate occasions with the prestigious Super World Orchestra at the Tokyo International Music Festival.
When it was finally time for me to move onto new challenges and a return to my spiritual home in South Wales, the fabulous trombone section had expanded to include a fourth player, the wonderful Rupert Whitehead, with Matthew Knight on 2nd, Matthew Gee on Principal and Kevin Morgan on tuba.I left the RPO in February 2018 after 27 glorious years to take up my current position as Head of Brass at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
