GLASGOW is to play host to leading brass virtuosi as international performers, including Christian Lindberg and Mnozil Brass, descend on the city for the Glasgow Trombone Weekend.
Swedish trombone soloist, Lindberg, will team up with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) for the prestigious festival, which also features competitions and masterclasses with the British Trombone Society in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The events, which run from 22 until 25 June 2017, will take place in City Halls and the Royal Conservatoire, with students and staff from the institution among those taking part.
Martyn Brabbins will lead the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg and BBC SSO principal trombone player, Simon Johnson, in a concert featuring Sandström’s Echoes of Eternity, for two trombones and orchestra, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on Thursday, 22 June.
The following evening, Brabbins and the BBC SSO return to City Halls with Lindberg and Jörgen van Rijen, principal trombone player of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, where the programme will include Lindberg’s The Waves of Wollongong and the Aho Trombone Concerto.
Both events are preceded by Pre-Concerts in City Halls’ Recital Rooms, featuring short informal performances by students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
World-renowned brass septet Mnozil Brass returns to Scotland with its unique brand of virtuosity and humour on Saturday, 24 June. Cirque will showcase the ensemble’s reputation for stunning playing, improvisations and brilliant on-stage choreography in the plush surroundings of City Halls.
Trombone players will have the opportunity to pit their wits against each other during a day of British Trombone Society competitions in the Royal Conservatoire’s Stevenson Hall on Saturday, 24 June.
The following day, the institution plays host to the British Trombone Society Trombone Day, featuring clinics, concerts, workshops and exhibition stands.
Liam Kirkman, president of the British Trombone Society, said: “June is shaping up to be an exciting month, as trombone players from far and wide meet in Glasgow for its Trombone Weekend.
“With so many terrific concerts, workshops and competitions to enjoy, I would encourage players of all levels of experience and ability to come along and enjoy this fantastic spectacle showcasing superstars from the brass and trombone world.”
Tickets for the events are on sale now, with attendees at the concerts in City Halls entitled to multi-buy discounts.
Based at City Halls in the heart of Glasgow’s Merchant City, the BBC SSO is Scotland’s leading champion of new music, and has established strong links with local communities through its thriving learning and outreach programme. It is a major partner in Big Noise, Scotland’s innovative project for social change through music, plays a major role in the BBC’s Ten Pieces initiative, and has a close association with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, working over a variety of disciplines with conductors, composers, soloists and orchestral players. As well as taking live music to towns and cities across Scotland, it appears regularly at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival and at other major festivals. In recent years the orchestra has toured to India, South America, China, Holland and Belgium.
Thomas Dausgaard became chief conductor in September 2016 taking over from Donald Runnicles who held the post since 2009 and is now Conductor Emeritus.
A past recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Orchestra, the BBC SSO’s commercial recordings have received a number of prizes, including four Gramophone Awards.
Christian Lindberg’s achievements for the trombone can only be compared with those of Paganini for the violin or Liszt for the piano. Having premièred over 300 works for the trombone (including more than 30 composed by Christian himself), recorded over 70 solo CDs, and having an international solo competition created in his name in Valencia, Spain, Christian Lindberg is today nothing less than a living legend.
At an early stage of his career he joined Yo Yo Ma and Gidon Kremer as the BBC Music Magazine’s soloist of the year. In 2000, together with Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, he was voted by an international poll the greatest brass players of the 20th century. He was the first Swedish instrumentalist ever to be invited to perform as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And, in May 2007, he was artist-in-residence at the Musikverein in Vienna – the ‘stronghold’ of traditional classical music. Christian Lindberg has worked with practically every major orchestra and conductor in the world today. For a trombonist to achieve all this before turning 50 is, to say the least, remarkable.
Lindberg took up the trombone at 17 inspired by the jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden. At 18, he gained admission to the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and after having played for only two years he got a position as trombonist in the orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. At 20, he left the orchestra, and has since built up a unique and impressive career as the first trombone soloist in history, as well as embarking on two new enormously successful careers as conductor and composer.
Alongside his activities as soloist and composer, Christian Lindberg has already conducted orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Basque National Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra – where he has been exposed as the orchestra’s profile artist in the season 11/12 with three productions, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and Tenerife Symphony Orchestra.
As principal conductor and artistic advisor of the newly-established Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra with strong support from the Norwegian government, Christian Lindberg has conducted staged productions of Carmen and Bohème as well as taken the orchestra on several tours including a concert in the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg upon invitation from Valery Gergiev.
Today Lindberg´s schedule is fully booked for years ahead. This schedule combines being chief conductor of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Wind Ensemble with guest conducting of orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Giuseppe Verdi Orchestra of Milan, working on composition commissions from ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir; and continuing his solo appearances with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the NDR Orchestra in Germany and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Orchestra.
As for the ‘Gasthaus Mnozil’? Well, they fill that too of course, but in a somewhat different way.
About the British Trombone Society
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