Brass Competition Delights Audience and Adjudicator

February 2nd 2022

We were bowled over by the quality of the performances on Monday 31 January at the Malcolm Smith Brass Prize final. Eighteen pupils over three groups played an impressive range of instruments and musical genres, from JS Bach, Bizet and Haydn to Howard Blake, Monty Norman and John Williams. The competition, which was divided into Initial, Intermediate and Advanced categories, was adjudicated by Mr Crispian Steele-Perkins, an internationally renowned virtuoso solo trumpeter and recording artist who has played on many film and TV scores and performed with the likes of the Royal Philharmonic, English National Opera, Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa. We thank him for his enthusiasm and for making the very difficult decision of choosing the winners.

The Malcolm Smith Brass Prize was set up in memory of Malcolm Smith, one of our trumpet teachers, who died suddenly in June 2001. Malcolm was a consummate musician and a good friend to many of us here. That he found time to teach at Alleyn’s is something for which we, and his pupils in particular, are enormously grateful. He was highly regarded in the music profession as a player (having played in many London Orchestras and, latterly, principal Trumpet in the Royal Opera House Orchestra), teacher (Professor of Trumpet at both the Royal College and the Royal Academy of Music) and negotiator. During the troubled times at the Royal Opera House in 2000/2001 Malcolm was an essential link between musicians and management – he had the wonderful knack of presenting various angles of a discussion in a direct, yet unthreatening way. In addition to all this, Malcolm had a great zest for life and was always getting people involved and enthusiastic for everything life throws at us. He remains greatly missed.

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