Malcolm Arnold Competition

The Malcolm Arnold Fantasies Competition, initiated by The Wallace Collection, sees four outstanding brass musicians selected to contribute to a unique recording project and perform at the forthcoming Malcolm Arnold Festival on 15th October 2016. The audition panel included John Wallace and Tony George of The Wallace Collection, and after completing an audition tour, which took place at 4 venues across the UK, the winners have now been selected. Michael Gibbs - Horn
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Illiam Quaine - Trumpet
Royal Northern College of Music, Benny Vernon - Trombone
Royal Academy of Music and Stuart Beard - Tuba
Royal Academy of Music

In addition to selecting the four players to record the Fantasies and perform at the Malcolm Arnold Festival in October, further recognition was given to Stuart Beard for the best performance across all the auditions. As part of this additional award, Stuart will also appear as a guest soloist with The National Youth Brass Bands of Scotland in summer 2016.

The recording project brings together Arnold’s works for brass, to create a CD, Arnold for Brass, which will be released under The Wallace Collection/Nimbus Alliance label at the Malcolm Arnold Festival in October, marking the 10th anniversary of Sir Malcolm’s death.  The recording will incorporate performances from The Wallace Collection, The National Youth Brass Band of Scotland (which originally commissioned Little Suite for Brass No 1 in 1963), RCS Brass and the four winners of the Fantasies Competition – who will record the Fantasies for Horn, Trumpet, Trombone and Tuba and in so doing pay tribute to the rejuvenation of these works through their rediscovery of these works at the outset of their careers.

John Wallace commented, "Every participant was a great credit to their respective institutions. The competition across the UK was intense and the final decisions were far from easy, requiring great deliberation between us both. We were genuinely very impressed by the high standards we found throughout the auditions, and from our privileged position of being able to see these talented players in action at all the venues, we feel that the UK's potential future for brass playing is so very bright.”

Photo: Malcolm Arnold

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