Page 85 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

fledgling fame, and one she’s carried in her consciousness ever since. And from it
she’s crafted an album that’s intriguingly exploratory, even by her standards.

It was with Copland’s haunting Quiet City that the then teenage trumpeter triumphed
as a concerto finalist in the 1998 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. That

year’s overall event was won by percussionist Adrian Spillett, for whose career the
competition served as a successful springboard; for Balsom, however, it proved a

launchpad of rocket-propelling proportions. But while there’s a nice resonance in
returning to Quiet City to mark a milestone, it’s very clear the work means more to

Balsom than being a mere mental souvenir. Even back then, Quiet City, for her,
embodied how she felt about her instrument and its sound; it was ‘the composition

that encapsulated exactly’ how she saw the trumpet.

Alison Balsom at the recording sessions (photo: Hugh Carswell)

It’s on this work that Balsom has built a programme reflecting that fertile but frictional
era of American history that is the first half of the 20th century, a time when classical