Page 58 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

trumpet can have an amazingly expressive, soul-like, vocal,
introverted and thoughtful character. I discovered it when I was a

teenager. My dear, wonderful guru teacher John Miller introduced it to

me, and as soon as I learned it (and it’s not an easy piece, as any
trumpet player will tell you!), it sort of spoke to me. Once you got

around the nuts and bolts of it, the technical challenges of it all — the

piece unlocked and became something that related to my voice and

my identity on the trumpet. I found it when I found this piece — how I

wanted to express myself through the trumpet. It really stayed in my
heart for my whole life. I didn’t want to rush my recordings and just do

things because they were part of the trumpet repertoire; it’s got to feel

like the right time. And this really felt like the right time. I knew that
the Britten Sinfonia would play it so amazingly, too.

But one of the other reasons that album came about was because I
was invited to play at the Barbican in London a few years ago with

the Britten Sinfonia, and they asked me to play the Concierto de

Aranjuez, Miles Davies and Gil Evans’ version of Rodrigo’s Sketches of

Spain. I wasn’t sure if I was the right person for it, being a classical
trumpet player, and I didn’t know if it would sound right with an

orchestra. But in fact, it turned out that the Britten Sinfonia are a very

flexible ensemble and not really defined by genre. They have some of

the best non-classical musicians in London who also play in bands,
who play classical, jazz and many other styles. When I went and

participated in this concert, I was mesmerised by their playing. It didn’t

sound pastiche or like a copy of Gil Evans’ recording — it sounded
really like what Gil Evans would have wanted. It really had that sound,

rather than a classical version of that sound. So I was very inspired by

that.

I felt like I was in that place that trumpet players often find themselves

in, where they often wonder if they are falling between two stools;