Upon landing at Dallas Fort Worth Airport, morale among the group was at an all-time low after a long day and soggy shoes from our earlier trip to Niagara Falls. With only a vending machine for comfort, Helen and I sampled some spicy dill pickle chips that nearly burnt off our taste buds. Relief arrived […]
Monday 20th October The group’s second ever visit to Schenectady — our phonetically challenging friend nestled in leafy upstate NY — had been nostalgic and brilliant. With the beautiful resonance of Union Chapel pleasantly lingering in our ears, it was time to embark on the near 300-mile drive west to our next touring stop: Buffalo, […]
Wide awake well before my early alarm, I gathered my belongings and joined the team in the lobby of our Skokie, Illinois hotel. The immediate mission is to get Septura – players, instruments, luggage (including Aunt Dina the car horn) onto a tiny domestic aeroplane destined for Rochester, New York. Ultimately our goal for today […]
On reflection our journey to Chicago went fairly smoothly; not counting the large brood of (9) restless children sat in front of us on the plane. I empathised with the overburdened parents, despite Screaming Baby no.1 often being draped over my entertainment screen, while parents and various older children attempted to soothe Screaming Baby no.2 […]
We’re looking forward to bringing our American in Paris programme to the USA in a series of concerts in October 2025. Our fifth tour to the states is supported by Dorico, the notation software that has made our groundbreaking counterfactual canon of arrangements for brass septet possible. The tour will see the group return to […]
Septura today announces Helen Vollam as the newest member of the group. Widely recognised as one of the finest trombone players of her generation, Helen is Principal Trombone of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and also a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Bones Apart Trombone Quartet. She is the first woman to have […]
In a programme celebrating Septura’s 10th anniversary, we were delighted to premiere a new commission by leading UK composer Roxanna Panufnik at the Wigmore Hall in London. Artistic Director Matthew Knight wrote in the programme: Septura was born out of a passion for the sound of brass instruments. We wanted to harness their intense emotional […]
At the end of the 2023-24 season Septura’s Founder, Simon Cox, decided to move on to new challenges outside the music industry. Simon will continue to play an important role in shaping Septura’s future – he’s joining the Board of Trustees. But he’ll no longer be playing in the group or involved in the day-to-day […]
It was hard to believe the last day of our tour had arrived – it had seemed so far away almost three weeks ago as we touched down in Atlanta. Since then we’ve zigzagged across this huge country, performed 12 concerts (with one cancellation), and encountered heavy snow, torrential rain, warm sunshine and (almost) tornadoes. […]
Basketball, Baseball and bottoms. Everyday feels like a Monday – we have been working very hard. Travelling, early starts, concerts and masterclasses. But now we were in the unprecedented situation of having TWO WHOLE DAYS OFF! The first day would largely be spent traveling to San Francisco, but the following day we were at our […]