How long have you played with Black Dyke Band and what position do you currently hold?
I am now in my 25th year with the band and in all of that time I have had the pleasure of playing second cornet.

What’s the best thing about playing in a brass band?
Playing in a band is quite unique, as well as playing a very wide range of music you get to play alongside wonderful people and have opportunities to meet other similarly minded musicians all the time.

What’s your highlight so far with Black Dyke Band?
There have been so many, but I must say, my absolute personal favourite has been our tours of Japan in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

How did you get involved with playing a brass instrument?
At primary school we didn’t really have music lessons as such, so my first real experience came at secondary school. I took instantly to music and went to ask the music teacher if I could sign up for an instrument but they had all gone by the time I got to her. I pestered her so much that she agreed to give me lessons on the recorder for half an hour a week, until someone decided that playing an instrument just wasn’t for them, so I leaped at the opportunity, it just happened that it was a brass instrument and I have never looked back.

What was your earliest musical experience?
As a baby I was briefly exposed to some Black Sabbath, apparently I screamed the place down until it stopped. As a toddler though my father told me that I would wander around the house incessantly singing the chorus to Yellow River by Christie with the words “Lellow River”! As a participant though, my first real musical experience that I remember was performing in my high school choir in our first Christmas concert, my parents were extremely proud.

Who has been your biggest influence?
Even though she died when I was fifteen, I would have to say my mother, for her positive outlook and the kindness she always showed to everyone and anyone.

Do you enjoy practising or find it a chore?
As a burgeoning musician at school I used to love practicing, though our neighbours and my younger brothers used to have a different response to the amount I used to do. If it’s done properly, it’s never a chore, it can be hard work, but it is always ultimately rewarding.

Were your parents musical?
My father wasn’t no, my mother did have piano lessons as a girl though I never heard her play. My grandfather (on my mother’s side) was a very big fan of opera, the music of Verdi and Puccini in particular and at one time he had an extensive collection of 78rpm records.

What piece of music do you most enjoy playing?
Contest Music by Wilfred Heaton is my all-time favourite piece of music for brass band.

What’s the best and worst things about performing?
The best thing about performing is seeing the joy and pleasure that you give to audience members, being able to share wonderful musical experiences with them. The worst thing about performing for me is that I do suffer from cold sores, when one decides to erupt, they make it very difficult and sometimes almost impossible to be able to play, never mind play to the ability that you are normally able, it’s the frustration and powerlessness of effectively being prevented being able to perform to your normal standard.

What can the audience expect from a performance by Black Dyke Band?
Exceptionally high standard of musicality, a wide variety of music, thoroughly enjoyable entertainment. At the end of the night, they will be wishing that they could just hit a replay button and experience the concert all over again.

Please tell us a little bit about how you came into being a composer.
I studied music at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in both the UK and the USA. Musicology was a key subject of focus that fascinated me, I took every chance I could to discover how and why composers wrote their music, and looked at the style, instrumentation, structure, cultural perspective, purpose and timeline in which it was written. Across my portfolio career I have spent time teaching and exploring the process of composition at GCSE and A Level as well as writing and arranging music for talented groups of young people. The interest in composition grew from here and opportunities for this have increased over time…

Who and what are your musical inspirations and how have they influenced Autumn?
My inspiration for Autumn comes from the hurricane season in the Caribbean, where nature is a powerful force that can move from being a calm, blissful tropical setting to something that changes quickly, gathering momentum, with air currents moving towards becoming a full blown hurricane and storm.

Autumn is a time of change, and I’m thinking of the Windrush Generation who came to the UK and made crucial and indispensable contributions to life in the UK. Many of them have passed on and this brings to the generation after them a time of change and adjustment.

I’ve been thinking about the science of how currents circulate and gather momentum to create a storm. Consequently, in the first and third movements there are lots of circular themes that evoke the joy and the calm of a tropical setting or which gather momentum in certain places to simulate the way in which air currents mobilise to create a storm.

The middle movement starts with a bass motif (borrowed from a theme near the end of the first movement) which is overlaid with dissonant harmonies, which is later joined by a plaintive melody, setting the mood for the dark and sad reflections on the aftermath of a storm.

How does it feel being back in Leeds with a world premiere of this significance?
It’s wonderful to have this opportunity to participate in a cultural event in Leeds after spending my formative years in the city, it’s a great cultural centre.

What are you most looking forward to about hearing Autumn performed live in concert for the first time?
Hearing violin soloist Ellinor D’Melon interacting with steel pan player Leon Foster Thomas and the Manchester Camerata orchestra to create a vibrant, expressive and musically imaginative interpretation of the score.

What would be the five pieces of music, book and luxury you’d take to a desert island with you?

The five pieces of music I’d take with me would be:
– JS Bach’s Cantata No 51, Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen, BWV 51, performed by Kathleen Battle, Wynton Marsalis and the Orchestra of St Luke’s, conducted by John Nelson.

– Gregory Porter’s Painted on Canvas, performed with the Metropole Orchestra.

– Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No 2 performed by Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar and conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

– Valerie Coleman’s Umoja performed by Imani Winds.

– Afro Cuban All Stars’ Amor Verdadero.

The book I’d take would be Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Life of Rosa Parks by Douglas Brinkley, and my luxury item would be a very fine digital radio so I could listen to music and all that’s going on in the world.

Please tell us a little bit about how you came into being a composer, songwriter and music producer.
I’ve always been interested in how things work, why certain elements connect seamlessly, and why others don’t. The more I listened to music and experienced live performances, the more my interest in the creation process developed.

Who and what are your musical inspirations and how have they influenced The Last Summer?
Quincy Jones, Earth Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown are a few of my inspirations, although you won’t really hear them in The Last Summer. My influence for this piece comes directly from the culture and the people of the Caribbean, and particularly by the passing of my grandfather on 25 November 2022.

My grandfather’s transition revealed a truth that I’d not considered before this experience, that many members of the Windrush generation are approaching the age where they’re experiencing their last summers, and eventually, this will be the end of an era. For this reason, I chose to write The Last Summer as a collection of my grandfather’s memories and experiences of finding his feet, and “building a foundation of his own” in England.

It’s also dedicated to the people of the Caribbean, the men and women who came to the United Kingdom to help rebuild its economy and shape new dreams for themselves.

What are you most looking forward to about hearing The Last Summer performed live in concert for the first time?
Experiencing it as an audience member and not as a composer.

What would be the five pieces of music, book and luxury you’d take to a desert island with you?
I don’t need much, if I was on a desert island, I’d just kick back and chill.