On 9th February I will embark on a ten day visit to Texas, keen to escape the cold weather and spread ‘euphonium love' in the 2nd biggest state in the US. It begins with a three-day appearance at the Texas Music Educators Conference in San Antonio, before embarking on a gruelling seven university tour, including a masterclass and full recital everyday.
From February 13th I'll will be at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas A&M University in Commerce (14th), the Texas Christian University in Fort Worth (15th), University of Texas in Austin (16th), Texas State University in San Marcos (17th), Baylor University in Waco )18th) and the tour culminates at the US mecca for euphonium students, University of North Texas (19th).
I'm going to be presenting a varied programme in my recitals, including major new works with piano as well as teaming up with the resident university brass quintets and trombone quartets.
For the last few years I've had some invitations from schools in Texas to visit and I thought it best to try and incorporate all of them in one very concentrated visit. It's going to put huge demands on the stamina as every morning I have to be up and away by 6 AM to get to the next school to start rehearsing, but I'm really looking forward to. Those that know me know that this kind of schedule is what I enjoy! I'll get the chance to work with all the low brass at these seven universities. I'm expecting there'll be a lot of questions about brass bands and I'm excited to see one or two fledgeling bands that operate at these universities.
There are many new exciting projects in 2012, and somehow I will try to balance these with my work as Artistic Director of the forthcoming ITEC 2012 to be held at the Brucknerhaus in Linz at the end of June. Before then there are visits to Estonia, the Netherlands, Belgium (or a special soloist concert that also features David Childs and Glenn Van Looy) Latvia, Germany, China, Portugal, Austria and Singapore. I'll also be recording a new solo CD with the Central Band of the RAF in April, featuring four major new works.
