This month's recital at the Guards Chapel will be performed by Nick Walkley, a cornettist from the Irish Guards band. Taking a break from regular duties such as Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace, he will be joined pianist Steven Miller and other brass players from the Irish and Coldstream Guards to perform a musical tour of Europe featuring cornet repertoire from around the continent.
Originally of a brass band heritage, Nick hails from Manchester where he was previously engaged as a trainee Architect alongside spells as principal cornet with Fairey and Leyland bands. He has no regrets about the career change arguing “Some might rightfully have questioned my sanity in deciding to trade the free, creative and glamorous life of an Architect in for the Army! Actually I’ve found it to be the total opposite in that respect; this career offers me all kinds of opportunities in and outside of music and I’m continuously performing to a high standard at high profile events that are very much in the public eye’.
Since joining the Corps of Army Music in 2010 Nick has also featured as principal cornet of the British Army Brass Band, and was awarded both the Cousins and Cassell Silver medals from Kneller Hall as the most outstanding graduating musician and instrumentalist of 2011.
Since moving south Nick admits he has found a difference between the music scenes in London and the North, encountering a tradition of treating ‘band’ instruments less seriously than their orchestral cousins. “The general attitude down here seems to be that the ‘short-model trumpet’ is some sort of training instrument! Actually for the Cornet there’s quite a difference in approach, and I don’t mean just turning on the brass band vibrato. It’s almost a class issue, and I hope this recital will bridge that and showcase some of the wonderfully lyrical classical repertoire that suits this instrument, something perhaps there isn’t enough recognition for in the capital.”
Last November, LSgt John Storey of the Coldstream Guards band gave a well-received Euphonium recital as part of the same series. He featured music by John Golland and Joseph Horovitz alongside a new work for Euphonium and string quintet from the pen of Steven Rockey.
Musn Nick Walkley’s recital will follow a similar format, as cornet and piano take us on a tour commencing in Italy with Bellstedt’s ‘Napoli’, moving through Norway, Spain and Russia with music respectively from Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Ravel and Vassily Brandt. Musn Nick Mott (Coldstream Guards) will join to form a duet partnership to represent England with Horovitz’s ‘Larghetto’ from ‘Concertino Classico’ before being joined by the remainder of a Household Division brass quintet that will take the tour to its conclusion via France, Austria, Ireland and Wales; the latter of which will be represented with a new arrangement of Gareth Wood’s ‘Nocturne’, scored here for both piano and brass.