Two top young euphonium players are in the news, Matthew White and Glen Van Looy, and there is a lot more to come from these two highly talented musicians, .
Matthew White, a third year euphonium student at the RNCM has added another solo award to his CV in recent days, winning the solo prize at the prestigious Brass in Concert championships, held at the Sage in Gateshead. He was recently appointed as the Solo Euphonium player with the Fairey(Geneva) Band and was playing in his first contest with them. Playing Peter Graham's Bravura, he certainly impressed the judges, and also seemed to win comprehensive praise from all the critics and journalists present.
Matthew has already made a name for himself with high profile concert appearances and national competition success.
He is the current BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Soloist of the Year as well as the Black Dyke Young Artist of the Year. He is currently studying at the prestigious Royal Northern College of Music (under Steven Mead!). He attended the Chethams School of Music from the age of 10 and also was a member of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, serving as Principal Euphonium for three years, winning the Harry Mortimer and Katie Ogden Solo Awards.
He has performed as a soloist at several of the country's leading concert venues including the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and has recently appeared as guest soloist with the Black Dyke Band at Symphony Hall, Birmingham at the Gala Concert of the British Open Brass Band Championships. He will also appear live at one of the BBC's Friday Night is Music Night broadcasts accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Matthew is also an accomplished trombonist and pianist.
During the Christmas period he will travel to Japan and while he is there will perform a recital at the famous Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo on 22nd December.
Last week we also received a nice visit from the young Belgian virtuoso Glenn van Looy (winner of the European Youth Solo contest 2010, as well as the British Solo Championships) who is undoubtedly another young man who is making headlines in the euphonium world. I spent a few days with him, working on some repertoire for the new solo CD he will record in Australia in February, with a brass band conducted by Jason Katsikaris. His new CD features many specially commissioned works by prominent young composers and this is definitely one to watch out for in 2011.
Both all these young virtuoso players using the new SM Ultra Euphonium mouthpiece, and in an article recently Matthew wrote:
'Since playing on the SM Ultra Mouthpiece, i have seen improvement in many aspects of my playing, including projection, clarity of articulation and sound quality.
The mouthpiece itself is very comfortable, and really helps with ease of high register. I wouldn't want to play on anything else!'
Thank you Matthew...what a good student !
The euphonium world will do well to watch the careers of these two extremely talented young players.
While Glenn visited the RNCM we also arranged some chamber music in which Matthew and Glenn played together