Alison Balsom | |
---|---|
![]() Balsom recording at Abbey Road in 2013 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Alison Louise Balsom |
Born | Hitchin, England | 7 October 1978
Genres | Classical |
Occupation(s) | Musician, educator |
Instrument(s) | Trumpet |
Years active | 2001–present |
Labels | |
Spouse(s) | |
Website | alisonbalsom |
Alison Louise Balsom, Lady Mendes, OBE (born 7 October 1978) is an English trumpet soloist, arranger, producer, and music educator. Balsom was awarded Artist of the Year at the 2013 Gramophone Awards and has won three Classic BRIT Awards and three German Echo Awards, and was a soloist at the BBC Last Night of the Proms in 2009. She was the artistic director of the 2019 Cheltenham Music Festival.
Balsom attended Tannery Drift First School in Royston, Hertfordshire, where she started taking trumpet lessons from the age of seven, followed by Greneway Middle School and Meridian School, whilst also playing in the Royston Town Band from ages 8 to 15. [1] [2] [3] Subsequently, she took her A-levels at Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. [4]
Playing in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain from ages 15 to 18, Balsom studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, [5] graduating in 2001 with first class honours and the Principal's Prize for the highest mark. She has also studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and at the Conservatoire de Paris with Håkan Hardenberger. [5] [2]
Balsom has been a professional solo classical trumpeter since 2001. She is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, during which time she performed much of the major concerto repertoire for solo trumpet and orchestra with all of the BBC Orchestras, [6] and she released her debut album with EMI Classics in 2002. In 2005, she released her second disc, Bach Works for Trumpet, as part of a contract with EMI Classics. In 2006, Balsom won 'Young British Classical Performer' at the Classical BRIT Awards and was awarded the 'Classic FM Listeners' Choice Award' at the Classic FM Gramophone Awards. She won 'Female Artist of the Year' at the 2009 and 2011 Classical BRIT Awards.
Her third album (the second disc in the EMI contract), Caprice, was released in September 2006, and her Italian Concertos disc was on the list of New York Times albums of the year. Balsom was a soloist at the 2009 Last Night of the Proms, performing, among other pieces, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a jazz arrangement of George Gershwin's "They Can't Take That Away from Me" with mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly.
In collaboration with playwright Samuel Adamson, Balsom devised Gabriel, a play using the music of The Fairy-Queen and other pieces by Henry Purcell and George-Frideric Handel, which she performed with actors and The English Concert as part of the 2013 summer season at Shakespeare's Globe. [7]
Balsom was the principal trumpet of the London Chamber Orchestra. [8] Her main trumpet is a Bob Malone-converted Bach C trumpet.[ citation needed ] About her natural trumpet playing, Balsom said in 2014, "I have been playing since I was in the 3rd year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – so since I was 21. I just fell in love with this instrument as soon as I started learning it, as it makes total sense of the whole Baroque era in terms of phrasing, colour and the difference in keys and certain notes of the scale, which you lose on a modern instrument such as the piccolo trumpet. I play various different makes but my favourite is by Egger of Switzerland." [9]
She is a Visiting Professor of Trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. [10]
She gave the world premiere of Qigang Chen's Joie éternelle for solo trumpet and orchestra at the 2014 BBC Proms, [11] and Guy Barker's Lanterne of Light trumpet concerto at the 2015 BBC Proms. In addition to 14 years of solo appearances at the Proms, Balsom has also appeared at the iTunes Festival, Latitude Festival, Henley Festival, Un Violon Sur le Sable, France and Wege durch das Land, Germany.
In 2014 Balsom was chosen as one of 27 artists, including Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Florence Welch, and Sam Smith, to feature in one of BBC Music's first broadcasts, an extravagant cover of the 1966 Beach Boys classic, "God Only Knows", under the name of The Impossible Orchestra. This track marked a first-time collaboration between the Warner, Sony and Universal Music labels. [12]
She appeared on BBC Radio 4’s long-running Desert Island Discs programme on 4 October 2015; her favourite piece of music was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, her favourite book The Complete Scores of Bach, and her luxury item a trumpet. [13]
In 2014, she returned to BBC Young Musician of the Year as a presenter of the category finals and semi-final of the competition alongside Miloš Karadaglić. [14] In 2016 she co-presented BBC Young Musician with Clemency Burton-Hill. [15]
Balsom succeeded Richard Rodney Bennett as President of Deal, Kent Festival in 2015. She was artistic director of the 2019 Cheltenham Music Festival, [16] [17] then stepped down in July 2019 to concentrate on performing and recording. [18]
Balsom was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music. [19]
She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the University of Leicester (2015) [20] and Anglia Ruskin University, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
She has a son with the English conductor Edward Gardner. [21] In 2017, she married film director Sam Mendes. Their daughter was born in September 2017. [22]
Trumpet: Schilke models E3L E-flat/D trumpet, E3L-4 E-flat trumpet, G1L G/F trumpet, P7-4 B-flat/A piccolo trumpet, S22CHD C trumpet; mouthpiece: Schilke 6A4a. [26]
Tasmin Elizabeth Little is an English classical violinist. She is a concerto soloist and also performs as a recitalist and chamber musician. She has released numerous albums, winning the Critics Award at the Classic Brit Awards in 2011 for her recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto.
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Leif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and chamber musician. Andsnes has made several recordings for Virgin and EMI. In 2012, Andsnes signed with Sony Classical, and recorded for the label the "Beethoven Journey" project, which included the five piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The works were recorded over three years, beginning with Nos. 1 and 3 in 2012, followed by Nos. 2 and 4 in 2013 and the Fifth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy in 2014. He is represented by IMG.
Joanna Clare MacGregor is a British concert pianist, conductor, composer, and festival curator. She is Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and a professor of the University of London. She was artistic director of the International Summer School & Festival at Dartington Hall from 2015 to 2019.
Julian Alexander Bream was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument. Over the course of a career that spanned more than half a century, Bream also helped revive interest in the lute.
Natalie Clein is a British classical cellist. Her mother is a professional violinist. Her sister is the actress Louisa Clein.
Steven Isserlis is a British cellist. An acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, educator, writer and broadcaster, he is widely regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. He is also noted for his diverse repertoire and distinctive sound which is deployed with his use of gut strings.
EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged in 1996, its recorded music division became the EMI Music Group. Following the European Commission's approval of the takeover of EMI Music Group by Universal Music Group in September 2012, EMI Classics was listed for divestment. The label was sold to Warner Music Group, which absorbed EMI Classics into Warner Classics in 2013.
The Classic BRIT Awards are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical and crossover music, and are the equivalent of popular music's Brit Awards. The awards are organised by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and were inaugurated in 2000 "in recognition of the achievements of classical musicians and the growth of classical music sales in the UK".
Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, is an English soprano and early music specialist. She has sung on over 100 recordings.
Julia Fischer is a German classical violinist and pianist. She teaches at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts and performs up to 60 times per year.
Guy Johnston is a British cellist and the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2000. He has subsequently enjoyed a successful international career as a soloist and chamber musician and currently serves as an associate professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York.
Jennifer Elizabeth Pike is a British violinist.
Alina Rinatovna Ibragimova is a Russian-British violinist.
Benjamin Grosvenor is a British classical pianist.
Tine Thing Helseth is a Norwegian trumpet soloist specializing in classical repertoire.
Mahan Esfahani is an Iranian-American harpsichordist.
Vilde Frang Bjærke is a Norwegian classical violinist.
Arcangelo is a UK-based early music ensemble founded by Jonathan Cohen in 2010. It performs and records music from the Baroque, Classical, and early Romantic repertoire, ranging from Monteverdi to Beethoven. It is noted for its approach based on the collaborative tradition of chamber music making.
Beatrice Rana is an Italian pianist.