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PlayersThe Trumpet SectionSurrey Brass is fortunate to have a regular, solid trumpet section who have worked together for a while, aiming to achieve that blended sound. John Goodwin The Founder of
Surrey Brass, John has been playing the trumpet for around 40 years, aiming to
get better all the time, but rarely succeeding. He won a Junior Exhibition Scholarship at the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama at the age of 11, and progressed to become Principal
Trumpet of the National Youth Orchestra a
few years later where he was taught by Ernest Hall, Philip Jones and Douglas
Moore among other distinguished tutors. University education followed, during
which he was taught privately by Philip Jones, John Miller and John Wallace and
played in "Le Quintet Hot D'Englefield Green", an extremely rough and
intemperate New Orleans Temperance Jazz band, and "Spam69", the
worlds' first (and hopefully last) punk trad jazz band. During this time attended a number
of Philip Jones Brass Ensemble summer schools.
John played for the London Tijuana Showband for many years which was led by his great friend and mentor Paul Ringham, and before he decided to retire as a full time freelance player had numerous engagements with The Welsh Opera, Ballet Rambert, The Royal Ballet, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. Since 1992 John has played for "Royal Scam" and "Guilty Party", two local 10-piece Soul Bands famous on the local corporate entertainment circuit, and recently left the Egham Band after a long stint playing Flugelhorn and Principal Cornet. He plays for the Linden Wind Orchestra, and deputises for the Wandsworth Symphony Orchestra, Surrey Mozart Players and other orchestras in the area. In 2008 he toured China with the Amadeus Orchestra. He has an expired gym membership, a rusty mountain bike and an overgrown allotment. Michael Chapple is one of our keenest supporters and specialist on "small" trumpets. Michael started playing the trumpet aged 8, learning through the brass tutoring of Surrey Youth Music and Performing Arts. He furthered his musical studies at Huddersfield University from where he graduated in 1996.
When not playing, teaching or arranging, Michael is a keen juggler, frequently being seen with a local team of jugglers known as Passing Time. On occasion he has even been known to combine the juggling with the trumpet playing - a sight that needs to be seen to be believed! He has a fine line in corny Jokes.
Here is a picture of him, off on his travels to the International Trumpet Guild convention that was held in Denver in 2004. As you can see he took part of his trumpet collection with him. Talking of which..... Huw Evans is a "gearhead" having one of the largest instrument collections anyone has ever heard of, at the last count it was 38 Bb trumpets alone (allegedly). He's great at providing those hard to find instruments for those difficult pieces. And showing us how to play them too! Huw is a keen Big Band player and is strong lead player. We like to feature him whenever a screaming jazz number is in the programme. Huw has never lived down winning a Donny Osmond lookalike contest when he was younger - there are photos out there somewhere and if you have one we'd like to hear from you! Our youngest member is Sam Ewens who has been playing the trumpet for ten years, six of those spent with teacher Robin Smith at Alleyn’s School, reaching Grade 8 with honours at age 15. He has been principal trumpet of the LSSO (London Schools Symphony Orchestra) for 3 years. With them he plays regularly at venues in London such as the Barbican and St John’s Smiths Square under various guest conductors such as David Stern and Benjamin Zander and with soloists, such as pianist Georgy Sandor. As a soloist, Sam performed the Arutunian Trumpet Concerto in March 2002 in the Schools Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. He also performs regularly in school recitals and recently won the Malcom Smith Brass Prize. Sam is also a keen sportsman, playing football and Hockey for his school and supporting Manchester United! Steve Dawes started playing brass instruments at the age of 7 in the Salvation Army brass band at Hednesford in Staffordshire. At the age of 10 he joined Staffs County Youth Orchestra and met Roy Curran from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, who was to become Steve's major musical influence over many years. At the age of 13 Steve was accepted into the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, where he was to play for 7 years, the latter years as principal trumpet (following John Goodwin's tenure of that chair!), appearing at most of the major concert venues in Europe, including the Royal Festival Hall and an annual appearance at the Royal Albert Hall Promenade concerts, often live on BBC TV. With the NYO he appeared under the baton of many of the worlds leading conductors including Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit and Sir Simon Rattle, under which the orchestra recorded Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The NYO introduced him to many prominent trumpet professors including Ernest Hall, Philip Jones, Elgar Howarth and David Mason, who became Steve's major trumpet teacher during this period. After graduating from Bristol University with a BSc Hons in chemistry Steve joined BP as a tech services chemist in 1981. Since then he has continued to play the trumpet with many of the countries leading semi and professional orchestras and ensembles. During a 3 year spell in South Africa he was accepted for extra work with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra brass section. Steve is currently principal trumpet with the Royal Orchestral Society Symphony Orchestra, the Surrey Mozart Players and is delighted to be associated with Surrey Brass where he re-kindled a friendship with John Goodwin 26 years after they first met in the NYO. Steve is an Associate of the Royal College of Music and a Fellow of the Trinity College, London. He works for BP as a Global Procurement Manager and is married to Sue with two boys, Michael and Marcus. He is a fanatical Manchester United supporter (and was before they started winning everything) Richard Knights joined us in late 2002 and we STILL await bio details despite him showing up at just about every rehearsal and concert!. Want to play? Contact us. The Horn Section
There are many other stars in the horn section who also play for Surrey Brass regularly, but have not got round to telling us what they are really like! They include
Want to play? Contact us. The Trombone SectionRecent joiners include:
Our distinguished Trombone Alumni include:
Want to play? Contact us. The Euphonium SectionWe don't have a regular Euph section but quite often the larger pieces we play demand a good player, so we recruit from local bands and other people. Want to play? Contact us. The Tuba SectionIain McDonald, Adrian Warren, and Chris Wilcox are our regular Tuba players. Iain McDonald began playing the Tuba at 11 years old and has been playing in various ensembles for 14 years, including the Lancashire Students Symphony Orchestra, Northern Junior Philharmonic Orchestra and Wingates Brass Band. He attended Chethams School of Music, Manchester and recently graduated from the University of Surrey with a degree in Music. Last year he performed the Edward Gregson Tuba Concerto with the University Orchestra. In his final recital he performed Robin Heywood's "Sink" for Tuba with hosepipe and drip-bag, however due to the almost impossible task of obtaining a drip-bag a recently emptied wine-box was found to be a satisfactory substitute. Chris Wilcox has been playing the tuba for what feels like an eternity! His musical education has included training on the Pimlico School Special music course, and time at the Centre for Young Musicians, where he was a member of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, with whom he toured Japan. He has a 1st class degree from the Colchester Institute and a Postgraduate Performance Diploma form Trinity College of Music. During his time at Colchester Chris won the solo brass competition, brass ensemble and composition prizes. He recently won the Philip Jones prize with his regular quintet - Trafalgar Brass. As a soloist Chris has performed the Gregson, Vaughan Williams and Ellerby Tuba Concertos. He has played in master classes with the Royal Philharmonic Quintet, Fine Arts Brass Quintet, Onyx Brass and Oren Marshall. He plays regularly with many London based orchestras as well as Surrey Brass. He teaches brass instruments, and despite his London music college training, still remains optimistic about a future career in music!... all be it as a session player on the Peruvian nose flute!! Other tuba players who have worked with us often include:
Want to play? Contact us. The Percussion SectionSally Basker has recently joined as our regular all-round percussionist. As well as having a van load of instruments, she has mastered an exotic electronic keyboard which creates all kinds of weird percussion sounds from instruments which have not been invented yet. When not hitting things, she is a high-flying exec in the Space business (well you would have to be!). Neil Marshall has appeared on most of our gigs in recent months, he is a highly accomplished kit player and the more popular numbers are guaranteed to swing along with him in on traps. Neil has his own highly successful Soul Band and is often to be found in various orchestra pits around Surrey, playing for the shows. Want to play? Contact us. |
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Since returning to the South, Michael has been splitting his time between
playing for a number of different groups (including many orchestras, brass bands
and brass ensembles) and teaching. He frequently finds himself teaching
alongside many of his past tutors in his work with Surrey Youth Music and
Performing Arts. He is also to be found tutoring many of the groups in Surrey
that he once played for, from absolute beginners to the finest trumpet section
in the County. He has formed a Trumpet Ensemble which aims to play pieces
written or arranged for the largest possible number of instruments at once,
so far the record being thirty six - but he is aiming for more! Michael is
extremely well known in the international trumpet community thanks to his
membership of the 
Lisa Ridgway
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