Sound Ideas was my Major Project at the Birmingham Conservatoire.

The projects goal was to put on a concert in the Adrian Boult Hall. This would also be created,organized and marketed by Sound Ideas.

The project was a great success and featured some of the Conservatoires most talented musicians.

The Sound Ideas Film Orchestra

The concert also featured the 56-piece Sound Ideas Film Orchestra which were both created from scratch and managed by myself, with original film score arrangements were written and conducted by David Livesey.

I played principle trumpet and also featured as a soloist when I played the theme from "Kill Bill’s" The Green Hornet from memory in front of my orchestra.

We had five two hour rehearsals in order to rehearse 40 minutes of new arrangements which were being played for the first time ever. However once we got everyone in and settled we had more like an hour and a half for each rehearsal. Unfortunately all but 2 rehearsals were in the colleges Lecture rooms due to booking priorities and it was a bit of a squeeze to put it lightly.

Regardless we all carried on and worked very hard to make the most of the time we had and thanks to some forward planning from myself and Dave we managed to sort most issues before they became a problem. A major issue was that part of Dave’s arrangements proved to be very tricky for the strings with such limited rehearsal time so we simply ripped that chunk out and dropped in a new brass and percussion section that Dave adapted from our friend Nick’s trombone arrangement.

Listening to the recording I think that this disaster proved to be one of the best bits. Listen out for the Arean theme noted by the heavy use of bass trombone and snare followed by a seamless transition into the Imperial March. This was more by accident than design but it sounds fantastic.

Dave Livesey

Dave and I met singing in the Conservatoires compulsory choir for our first year at college. He used to listen to my compositions and give me advice whilst I would play for him in composers ensemble. I had a lot of time for Dave as he was a good chap but more importantly his compositions where the best in college. His peers would create very difficult music with continually shifting keys and metre which sounded terrible. Dave had a grasp of composition that others at college lacked. This was the ability to make simple scores sound fantastic.

We started working closely together in our final year of college when we were both featured in each others projects. If you’d like to find out more about my composer/ arranger and the conductor of the Sound Ideas Film Orchestra have a look at Dave’s site at: www.davelivesey.co.uk . Dave has a blog about his career as a professional composer.

Currently we are in the processes of creating our first podcast and Dave is writting a Trumpet Sonata for me to perform.

Video

Here’s a little taster of the concert. You can hear the Live Concert through my Virb Player (follow the link).

This Video shows me playing the Green Hornet. I think I could make it a bit cleaner if I had another crack at it but when I look back at all the organization I was doing on the night and the stress it must have caused (even though I don’t remember any) I think it’s pretty good. I’m very happy to say that this evening was my proudest moment in college.