In the News
December 16, 2006
Cambridge Evening News, City Edition
Alison is back as bold as brass
With a Classical Brit under her belt, international trumpet star Alison Balsom is used to playing in grand concert halls across the globe.
But this Christmas morning she'll be rejoining Royston Band - the group she played with in her youth - to entertain patients in the town's hospital and care homes.
"They'd never let me play the top part, because I haven't been to enough practices," says Alison, with a laugh. "But I can take it. The band has got a long tradition; I've been playing with them since I was eight. Quite a few of us come back at Christmas and it's great - definitely part of Christmas for me."
Royston born and bred, Alison is, at 27, among the world's greatest trumpet soloists. This year, along with the Brit, she won a Gramophone Award voted for by ClassicFM listeners. And she signed a three-disc contract with EMI, who've just released her solo album Caprice.
But it was back in Royston, aged just seven, that Alison caught the trumpet bug. A pupil at Tannery Croft School, she was inspired to take up brass playing by "an amazing music department" - and teacher Bill Thompson.
"It was such a fantastic department," she enthuses. "Of those of who started playing there, around the age of eight, four of us have become professional musicians; it's a brilliant example of good teaching when you're young. I just loved it, though I never loved practising.
And then I joined Royston Band, and the social life was great."
Soon after, aged 10, Alison saw a classical trumpet soloist in concert. And that was it: her ambition was set.
"There was absolutely no question: I was going to play trumpet at the highest level I could," she says. "From then on, it was just the most constant thing in my life, no matter who my friends were or what else I was into - the typical teenage fads. I never made a conscious decision to keep playing, it just felt the natural thing to do."
Alongside her mainstream secondary schooling (attending Greneway and then Meridian in Royston), Alison studied under trumpet professor John Miller at the Guildhall School of Music, Junior Department, and played with the National Youth Orchestra. At 18 she joined the main Guildhall School, later being tutored at the Paris Conservatoire.
"My parents never made it seem that anything was impossible for me," says Alison, who now lives in London. "People say it's unusual to be a female trumpet player, but it was never even an issue for me when I was growing up; nobody ever said 'Oh, but you're a girl'. My parents led me to think that if you want to do something, you can do it - if you really go for it."
And Alison went for it, dedicating herself to both practising and performing. Even now, almost 20 years since taking up the trumpet, she still has a rigorous practise schedule. "I have to do it all the time," she says. "I can't go on holiday without a trumpet. Playing the trumpet uses your facial muscles, which have a very short memory; if I don't play for even three days everything completely slips."
A finalist in the 1998 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Alison caught EMI's ear while being represented by the Young Artists Concert Trust. She recorded her first album with the label in 2002 - and was catapulted into the public eye.
Currently a member of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists scheme, under whose auspices she has already given concerts at the Wigmore Hall, she has played with all the BBC orchestras, including the Symphony and the National Orchestra of Wales.
"I love it when people say 'I didn't realise the trumpet could sound like that' - when they're surprised by what it can do," adds Alison, who names jazz legend Wynton Marsalis among her heroes. "Winning awards is a really, really great vote of confidence. But I'm so busy going from one thing to the next I never really stop and think 'Wasn't that amazing'; I'm usually thinking about finding the next piece of music that works on the trumpet." One of the challenges for Alison, as a classical trumpet player, is to find sufficient music to play; in the classical world, at least, the trumpet is more usually thought of as part of an orchestra, rather than a solo instrument. So she is constantly trying new pieces, from a wide range of genres.
Alison describes her latest album Caprice, for example, as "a journey to two ends of the classical spectrum"; it sees her play everything from famous opera arias to jazz and latin music.
Fresh from a working trip to both Finland and Mexico, Alison is looking forward to returning to her family home, still in Royston, for the Christmas break. The proud owner of no less than seven different trumpets, she'll be taking at least one home for the holidays.
On the presentation of her Gramaphone Award, the magazine's editor-in-chief said of the blonde beauty: "Marrying thrilling musicianship with a marketeer's dreams, Alison Balsom is the very model of a modern classical musician. If a single young artist puts the trumpet on the map it will be her."
Alison has, it appears, realised her childhood ambition - of playing trumpet to the highest level possible.
Cambridge Evening News, City Edition
Alison is back as bold as brass
With a Classical Brit under her belt, international trumpet star Alison Balsom is used to playing in grand concert halls across the globe.
But this Christmas morning she'll be rejoining Royston Band - the group she played with in her youth - to entertain patients in the town's hospital and care homes.
"They'd never let me play the top part, because I haven't been to enough practices," says Alison, with a laugh. "But I can take it. The band has got a long tradition; I've been playing with them since I was eight. Quite a few of us come back at Christmas and it's great - definitely part of Christmas for me."
Royston born and bred, Alison is, at 27, among the world's greatest trumpet soloists. This year, along with the Brit, she won a Gramophone Award voted for by ClassicFM listeners. And she signed a three-disc contract with EMI, who've just released her solo album Caprice.
But it was back in Royston, aged just seven, that Alison caught the trumpet bug. A pupil at Tannery Croft School, she was inspired to take up brass playing by "an amazing music department" - and teacher Bill Thompson.
"It was such a fantastic department," she enthuses. "Of those of who started playing there, around the age of eight, four of us have become professional musicians; it's a brilliant example of good teaching when you're young. I just loved it, though I never loved practising.
And then I joined Royston Band, and the social life was great."
Soon after, aged 10, Alison saw a classical trumpet soloist in concert. And that was it: her ambition was set.
"There was absolutely no question: I was going to play trumpet at the highest level I could," she says. "From then on, it was just the most constant thing in my life, no matter who my friends were or what else I was into - the typical teenage fads. I never made a conscious decision to keep playing, it just felt the natural thing to do."
Alongside her mainstream secondary schooling (attending Greneway and then Meridian in Royston), Alison studied under trumpet professor John Miller at the Guildhall School of Music, Junior Department, and played with the National Youth Orchestra. At 18 she joined the main Guildhall School, later being tutored at the Paris Conservatoire.
"My parents never made it seem that anything was impossible for me," says Alison, who now lives in London. "People say it's unusual to be a female trumpet player, but it was never even an issue for me when I was growing up; nobody ever said 'Oh, but you're a girl'. My parents led me to think that if you want to do something, you can do it - if you really go for it."
And Alison went for it, dedicating herself to both practising and performing. Even now, almost 20 years since taking up the trumpet, she still has a rigorous practise schedule. "I have to do it all the time," she says. "I can't go on holiday without a trumpet. Playing the trumpet uses your facial muscles, which have a very short memory; if I don't play for even three days everything completely slips."
A finalist in the 1998 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Alison caught EMI's ear while being represented by the Young Artists Concert Trust. She recorded her first album with the label in 2002 - and was catapulted into the public eye.
Currently a member of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists scheme, under whose auspices she has already given concerts at the Wigmore Hall, she has played with all the BBC orchestras, including the Symphony and the National Orchestra of Wales.
"I love it when people say 'I didn't realise the trumpet could sound like that' - when they're surprised by what it can do," adds Alison, who names jazz legend Wynton Marsalis among her heroes. "Winning awards is a really, really great vote of confidence. But I'm so busy going from one thing to the next I never really stop and think 'Wasn't that amazing'; I'm usually thinking about finding the next piece of music that works on the trumpet." One of the challenges for Alison, as a classical trumpet player, is to find sufficient music to play; in the classical world, at least, the trumpet is more usually thought of as part of an orchestra, rather than a solo instrument. So she is constantly trying new pieces, from a wide range of genres.
Alison describes her latest album Caprice, for example, as "a journey to two ends of the classical spectrum"; it sees her play everything from famous opera arias to jazz and latin music.
Fresh from a working trip to both Finland and Mexico, Alison is looking forward to returning to her family home, still in Royston, for the Christmas break. The proud owner of no less than seven different trumpets, she'll be taking at least one home for the holidays.
On the presentation of her Gramaphone Award, the magazine's editor-in-chief said of the blonde beauty: "Marrying thrilling musicianship with a marketeer's dreams, Alison Balsom is the very model of a modern classical musician. If a single young artist puts the trumpet on the map it will be her."
Alison has, it appears, realised her childhood ambition - of playing trumpet to the highest level possible.