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Any tuba players or Derek Bourgeois fans in reach of East London may be interested in the World Premier of his 2nd Tuba Concerto which I'm giving with the Forest Philharmonic Orchestra at Walthamstow Assembly Halls on Sunday 26th April concert start 6:30. The programme includes The Planets and Elgars Cockaigne Overture.

I'll also be giving the premier of the brass band version with East London Brass at some time in the future.

It's a real crowd pleaser and specifically written for keen amateurs as opposed to the super virtuosic so I'm hoping it will be taken up by plenty of tuba brethren when it's published. Having said that it's still pretty tough, similar in standard to the Gregson and Vaughan Williams but longer at 24 minutes and with twice as many notes as I specifically moaned to Derek that most tuba concertos have the soloist sitting around listening for half the piece. There's quite a bit of Derek's humour in it, lots of Bach references (as I told him I liked playing the Bach cello suites) and plenty of chance to sing.

It's a nice career bookend for Derek who wrote his 1st Tuba Concerto very early in his career for the super virtuosic John Fletcher which is a real monster at 45 minutes and really tough for the orchestra as well. Sadly the 1st hasn't been played by anyone other than Fletcher in over 30 years. Being a tuba player himself (he was in the NYO with Fletcher) it's great that he will leave a concerto for his own instrument that hopefully will be popular amongst the community.

Sounds awesome; sorry I won't be around to hear it (on the other side of the pond)! Is it going to be recorded?

Hi Dave, I had it in my diary to come but a gig came in that evening.

Will you be recording it or, as I live in Walthamstow, will you be running it in a rehearsal? Not the same obviously...

I've been working a bit on the first concerto. I'm still a few years off a successful performance! Would be good to get one, even just with piano...

Having heard Dave play this through with Band I'm confident of at least two things:
1. Dave will do an absolutely first-rate job on the work
2. I can agree this is a GREAT addition to our solo rep. Totally playable on C tuba unlike most(?) concerti and, as Dave said, a splendid mix of British humour and fine melody...

I really like Derek Bourgeois' music in general, highly recommended.

Any hopes of a recording?

Hi folks, I'm sure there will at least be a handheld digital recording which I'll post on my website.

Well the premier performance came and went last Sunday. Whilst there's much about the performance I'm not happy with It was very well received by the audience and the composer was very pleased.

Here's the MP3 - (sorry about the length of the urls.)

http://mp3.davetubaking.com.davetubakin ... 0%28WP.mp3" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Here's some sample pages to wet the appetite.

http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC21.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC22.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC23.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC24.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC25.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC26.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC27.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC28.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.davetubaking.com/resources/DBTC29.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank

The brief was for an audience and user friendly piece playable by a good amateur soloist and orchestra (and band). So it's fairly light on the ear, has quite a few references to Bach, and plenty of Derek's humour.

There are no plans to publish the orchestral version but if anyone is interested they can contact me directly.

The Brass Band version, the Wind band version and the tuba and piano score will be published by Hafabra Music but not until after I've done the premier of the Band version but which isn't until Summer 2016.

Two spots went particularly wrong both in the second movement. At 11:13 the conductor got the speed totally wrong and it didn't right itself until 12:04 and later my lip went big time at the climax at 15:20 (urghhhh!). The very end was messy as well but we got there.

Love to know what people think of the piece. I've lived with it intimately for 9 months and can't be subjective.

Well, I really enjoyed it.

Many thanks for bringing this to fruition.

Fellow tubists,

I am doing the premier of the brass band version of the concerto on Saturday 9th July at Cadogan Hall in London right next to sloane square tube station. The concert is a celebration of Derek Bourgeois at 75 and Joseph Horovitz at 90 and both composers will be there. The band is East London Brass and they are joined by a 100 strong choir the Addison singers in the second half for a rare performance of Horovitz' oratorio Samson.

https://www.cadoganhall.com/event/east- ... rs-160709/" target="_blank