Frank Renton on Brass

In a special edition of our Frank Renton on Brass free podcast, Frank marks the death of James Shepherd, the former principal cornet of the Black Dyke Mills Band, and the founder of the James Shepherd Versatile Brass ensemble. He passed away on Thursday 22nd June, aged 86.When he recorded this short podcast, Frank said:"I’m talking about one of my dearest and oldest friends and colleagues, Jim Shepherd, known affectionately by everyone in the business as Gentleman Jim.That he’s one of the great cornet players of all time goes without saying but his skills as a teacher and mentor to others is often overlooked.He is simply one of the most natural musicians you could ever meet, and passing on what he knows to others is as natural as everything else.He remains one of the most liked and respected musicians that I've been privileged to know."He will be very sadly missed.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Our Track of the Week comes from a young trumpet player who is gradually forging a reputation as an international soloist who we like to think had her first taste of fame as the winner of  the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass award way back in 2014.  It's Matilda Lloyd and it's delightful!Frank's second track is in his opinion one of the greatest pieces ever written for the brass band, and in 1991 he and the Grimethorpe Colliery Band were to give the first performance of the music as reward for being selected as BBC Band of the Year."Its sheer virtuosity is remarkable, and conducting it is truly one of the high points of my long musical career.  So, enjoy the The Grimethorpe Colliery Band, playing Paganini Variations by Philip Wilby. The stuff of genius!"This is the last free podcast of this series, but we'll be back with a longer free podcast after the Summer, with news, reviews and interviews and some more truly wonderful music, so until then from Frank, it's "Thanks for listening and bye now!".For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

In this Frank Renton on Brass free podcast, Frank shares his Track of the Week and a piece of music that conjures up a memory from his life in music.The memory this week is one from the early 1970s when Frank was Band Master of the Gordon Highlanders and failed to convince his commanding officer that he hadn't just conducted a lot of wrong notes with the conclusion that he'd tried to be too clever by half! Frank's Track of the Week is a  brilliant band that seemed to come out of nowhere and took the world by storm.Enjoy some magical note playing - and yes they are the right ones!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

For twenty three years I was the writer and presenter of Listen to the Band on BBC Radio 2, an enjoyable and fascinating job, especially after thirty odd years as a member of the Armed Services.Part of the programme was to interview people making news in the band world, and none was more interesting than the composer Nigel Hess who achieved fame as a composer for the theatre, film and television. We start this podcast featuring Nigel Hess' three short ‘pictures’, inspired by several visits to a small part of the American East Coast, an area which provides great extremes in both the geography and the people.If that's the entree, then dessert is the thrill of hearing three great cornet players working together brilliantly. Featuring David Dawes, Roger Webster and Jim Shepherd, with the Fairey Band conducted by Stephen Cobb playing The Heralds by tuba virtuoso Philip Catelinet.It's an absolute musical feast!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

My Track of the Week this week features a young woman, Matilda Lloyd, whose  fortunes I have followed ever since she won the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Award in 2014, accompanied by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band with me conducting them. The track's just brilliant and she's proving to be a complete trumpet star.My second piece of music this week is also a bit special, certainly to me, not in any high flown emotional or intellectual context, but because of the sheer fun and enjoyment that the music has created. It will certainly get your toes tapping, metaphorically at least!I first heard it in the 1990s not long after it first appeared, I’ve conducted it lots of times and it never fails to thrill, but this version is quite something else.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

I never really mastered playing this piano solo by Debussy but when I discovered a wonderfully sensitive arrangement for band I knew it would make a perfect and totally unexpected encore for my concerts with Grimethorpe. In my second selection, The Beatles' music has echoed down the decades and with Liverpool in the centre of things last weekend for Eurovision I’ve included a simply staggering arrangement of Get Back as you’ve never heard it before.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Two contrasting pieces vie for attention this week both of which I love dearly. My Track of the Week reflects the formality of a Royal Coronation as commissioned from William Walton for the Coronation of King George VI in 1937. It absolutely captures the grandeur and ceremony of such an important occasion and I think it's a masterpiece and it's played here by Black Dyke.Our second choice this week is the complete opposite and has always given me great enjoyment, in the form of wonderfully organised musical chaos written and somehow controlled by American composer, Charles Ives.Written in 1903, it can sound a complete mess unless performed perfectly, as it is here by the President's Own Band of the United States Marine Corp.  Enjoy!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Almost 100 years ago George Gershwin was hard at work writing Rhapsody in Blue, as Gershwin later told his biographer,      "it was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer.... I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. And there I suddenly heard—and even saw on paper—the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end."It’s been re-scored many times including by Gordon Goodwin for his own Big Phat Band, which is where Chad Shoopman leading the trumpet section would have heard it, before making his own ambitious version for brass band which I'm featuring in this episode. It's quite brilliant!I first encountered the music of Geronimo Gimenez on a memorable balmy summer night in Spain, where I heard The Intermezzo from his Zarzuela, titled The Wedding of Louis Alonso and I’ve loved it ever since. Hear why in this latest edition of my free podcast.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

I’m preparing this edition of our free podcast in the week leading up to the Easter weekend, and my Track of the Week reflects this time of year.It’s  a recording by a trumpet and cornet player for whom I and many others have simply run out of complimentary adjectives to describe his playing.So I hope you'll enjoy Philip Cobb excelling in the perfect simplicity of this music by Edward Gregson.In the other half of this podcast I'm playing The Florentiner March, by Julius Fučík, which has always intrigued me.  I’ll tell you why and and when I got the chance, I made this arrangement of it for band and it’s still one of my favourites.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Oddly enough both pieces this week share the date of 1967. Although unconnected they make it a very memorable year for me. It was in 1967 year they launched a new lifeboat at Padstow on the North Coast of Cornwall and Malcolm Arnold who was living in Cornwall at the time was asked to write a special march for the occasion, and it's my Track of the Week.It’s also the year that I was in my first year as a Student Bandmaster at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, and I first heard and then conducted what I consider to be one of the greatest pieces ever written for a Brass Band and one I adore conducting to this day.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

I was brought up in Bradford and as I grew into my teens and became ever more interested in music and the arts, I became aware that one of our greatest composers Frederick Delius was also born there.One of the first records I was given was a recording of his music which did two things , it gave me a life long love of the sound of strings which has never left me, and it also fed my interest in his music, encapsulated in his piece La Calinda.A march by John Philip Sousa is a completely different but equally impressive musical score, none more so than his 'Liberty Bell', which has a fascinating history and I will tell you all about it in this episode of Frank Renton on Brass.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

This week I’m featuring a brilliant cornet player, Stephen Cobb, who has never appeared as a player in these podcasts before, with music written especially for him by the American composer Stephen Bulla. I think Tchaikovsky’s ballet music, Swan Lake, is one of the greatest of all musical achievements. It never fails to thrill me and move me all at the same time, which might surprise you,  but in this free podcast I'll tell you why.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

My personal musical choice this week isn’t actually a single piece but more about style and a dedication to perfection, epitomised by one person who through our work together became a friend, but before that was simply somebody who I thought epitomised everything that was good about the brass band, Jim Shepherd.My Track of the Week is by Nigel Clarke, best known as a composer of music for the cinema and some of the most innovative music for the brass band. The soloist is Harmen Vanhoorne,  Principal Cornet of Brass band Buizingen, and for whom Nigel wrote the stunning concerto, Mysteries of the Horizon, and we're playing the exciting 1st movement, The Menaced Assassin. Enjoy!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Frank's personal track this week features an unforgettable moment when he discovered the music of Wilfred Heaton and heard it played by his favourite band in the UK at the time, the Enfield Citadel Band of the Salvation Army.His Track of the Week, features trumpet virtuoso Alison Balsom playing Gymnopedie by Erik Satie, accompanied by the Guy Barker orchestra.Definitely two to savour.   For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

We start this episode with Frank's Track of the Week and asking what would Mozart have made of this stunning arrangement of his famous Rondo Alla Turca played by three European cornet superstars.Then, Frank talks about playing for HM Queen Elizabeth II at the Trooping of the Colour and "having spent much of my professional life involved in military music it came to play a big part in my life, especially the playing of marches. After all what would a parade be like without a good band playing good marches".So, join us on Parade in this episode of Frank Renton on Brass - it definitely steals a march on any other podcast!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

In this Frank Renton on Brass free podcast, Frank recalls the first time he knew he wanted to be a trumpet player and his first experience of a full brass section when, the "sheer vibrancy and weight of sound was just overwhelming".We play that first piece, the Overture from Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and in Frank's Track of the Week, we're with Fine Arts Brass at the Carnival of Venice.Two fantastic tracks that we hope you'll enjoy this week.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

In this Frank Renton on Brass free podcast, we've brass music of symphonic proportions plus a jazz classic written at about the same time, with memories of Frank’s own recording of it in 1983, rekindled after a chance meeting with the soloist.Last week Frank was in Manchester for the Festival of Brass and recorded a conversation with clarinettist, band master and director of music Paul Murrell, who was also the soloist in our featured recording this week of Artie Shaw's Concerto for Clarinet, conducted by Frank himself. Ending as it does with  a "legendary" altissimo C!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Is it possible that a brass arrangement of Liszt’s orchestral masterpiece Les Preludes is better than the original, plus this is what happens when you put a world class jazz trumpet player with a world class brass band.My Track of the Week is played by the outstanding trumpeter, Mike Lovatt with the Foden's Band, conducted by Michael Fowles,  playing the Rhapsody for Trumpet and Brass Band by Colin Skinner, a piece that has informed and delighted me for years, and one that whilst it makes virtuosic demands on the soloist, is much more traditional in style and content.My personal choice this week is a piece of music from my many years as a professional musician that helped shape my thinking, and it really is a blast from the past. It's Les Preludes by Franz Liszt, in its arrangement for brass band by William Rimmer and I still love it! I hope you will too.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

Frank takes us back to his earliest conducting days and recalls the impact that recordings of a Shostakovich masterpiece had on him, and in Frank's Track of the Week we hear an award winning performance by the Cory Band from the 2016 Brass in Concert that Frank presented, of music now associated forever with one of the world’s greatest storytellers, Roald Dahl, with themes centred on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Matilda.For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare

In this episode of Frank Renton on Brass I feature Elgar Howarth and Eric Ball. My track of the week celebrates the brilliant trumpet player, composer and conductor Elgar Howarth and my personal musical memory takes us back to 1956 when I made my first and only appearance at the National Brass Band Championships as a cornet player.I'm featuring the Symphonic Suite Festival Music by Eric Ball, and it's just beautiful!For more information on Frank Renton on Brass just visit our website at www.frankrentononbrass.com. #brassmusic #brassbands #podcasts #ブラスバンド #bandadiottoni #fanfare