Alison Louise Balsom, Lady Mendes, (born 7 October 1978) is an English

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

soloist, arranger, producer, and music educator. Balsom was awarded Artist of the Year at the 2013

Gramophone Awards The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and refer ...

and has won three

Classic BRIT Awards The Classic BRIT Awards (previously Classical BRIT Awards) are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical and crossover music, and are the equivalent of popular music's Brit Awards. The awards are organ ...

and three German Echo Awards, and was a soloist at the BBC Last Night of the Proms in 2009. She was the artistic director of the 2019

Cheltenham Music Festival The Cheltenham Music Festival is a British music festival, held annually in Cheltenham in the summer months (June, July) since 1945. The festival is renowned for premieres of contemporary music, hosting over 250 music premieres as of July 2004. ...

Early life and education

Balsom attended Tannery Drift First School in

Royston, Hertfordshire Royston is a town and civil parish in the District of North Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated on the Greenwich Meridian, which brushes the town's eastern boundary, and at the northernmost apex of the cou ...

, where she started taking trumpet lessons from the age of seven, followed by Greneway Middle School and Meridian School, whilst also playing in the Royston Town Band from ages 8 to 15. Subsequently, she took her

A-levels The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational a ...

Hills Road Sixth Form College Hills Road Sixth Form College (commonly referred to as HRSFC, Hills Road or just Hills) is a public sector co-educational sixth form college in Cambridge, England, providing full-time A-level courses for approximately 2000 sixth form students fro ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. Playing in the

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYO-GB) is the national youth orchestra of the United Kingdom, consisting of 164 members of ages 13 to 19 years. Their mission is to "give thrilling experiences of orchestral music to teenage musici ...

from ages 15 to 18, Balsom studied at the

Guildhall School of Music and Drama The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...

, graduating in 2001 with first class honours and the Principal's Prize for the highest mark. She has also studied at the

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland ( gd, Conservatoire Rìoghail na h-Alba), formerly the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama ( gd, Acadamaidh Rìoghail Ciùil is Dràma na h-Alba) is a conservatoire of dance, drama, music, production, and ...

, and at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

with

Håkan Hardenberger Ulf Håkan Hardenberger (born 27 October 1961 in Malmö) is a Swedish trumpeter. Taking up the trumpet at the age of eight under the guidance of hometown teacher Bo Nilsson, Hardenberger pursued further studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with ...

Career

Balsom has been a professional solo classical trumpeter since 2001. She is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, during which time she performed much of the major concerto repertoire for solo trumpet and orchestra with all of the BBC Orchestras, and she released her debut album with

EMI Classics EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged in 1996, its recorded mus ...

in 2002. In 2005, she released her second disc, ''Bach Works for Trumpet'', as part of a contract with EMI Classics. In 2006, Balsom won 'Young British Classical Performer' at the

Classical BRIT Awards The Classic BRIT Awards (previously Classical BRIT Awards) are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical and crossover music, and are the equivalent of popular music's Brit Awards. The awards are organ ...

and was awarded the 'Classic FM Listeners' Choice Award' at the Classic FM

. She won 'Female Artist of the Year' at the 2009 and 2011 Classical BRIT Awards. Her third album (the second disc in the EMI contract), ''Caprice'', was released in September 2006, and her ''Italian Concertos'' disc was on the list of New York Times albums of the year. Balsom was a soloist at the 2009 Last Night of the Proms, performing, among other pieces,

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

's Trumpet Concerto with the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. T ...

and a jazz arrangement of

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

's " They Can't Take That Away from Me" with mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly. Balsom

In collaboration with playwright

Samuel Adamson Samuel Adamson (born 27 November 1969) is an Australian playwright and screenwriter who has lived and worked in the UK since 1991. He was born in Adelaide and lives in London. Career Samuel Adamson's debut play was ''Clocks and Whistles'' at th ...

, Balsom devised ''Gabriel'', a play using the music of ''

The Fairy-Queen ''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed ...

'' and other pieces by

Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest E ...

and George-Frideric Handel, which she performed with actors and

The English Concert The English Concert is a baroque orchestra playing on period instruments based in London. Founded in 1972 and directed from the harpsichord by Trevor Pinnock for 30 years, it is now directed by harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Nadja Zwiener ha ...

as part of the 2013 summer season at

Shakespeare's Globe Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in ...

. Balsom was the principal trumpet of the London Chamber Orchestra. Her main trumpet is a Bob Malone-converted

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...

C trumpet. About her

natural trumpet A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series. History The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication (e.g. break camp, retreat, etc.). Even before th ...

playing, Balsom said in 2014, "I have been playing since I was in the 3rd year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – so since I was 21. I just fell in love with this instrument as soon as I started learning it, as it makes total sense of the whole Baroque era in terms of phrasing, colour and the difference in keys and certain notes of the scale, which you lose on a modern instrument such as the piccolo trumpet. I play various different makes but my favourite is by Egger of Switzerland." She is a Visiting Professor of Trumpet at the

. She gave the world premiere of Qigang Chen's ''Joie éternelle'' for solo trumpet and orchestra at the 2014

BBC Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...

, and Guy Barker's ''Lanterne of Light'' trumpet concerto at the 2015 BBC Proms. In addition to 14 years of solo appearances at the Proms, Balsom has also appeared at the iTunes Festival, Latitude Festival, Henley Festival, Un Violon Sur le Sable, France and Wege durch das Land, Germany. In 2014 Balsom was chosen as one of 27 artists, including Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Florence Welch, and Sam Smith, to feature in one of

BBC Music BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, and the BBC Asian Network. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio ...

's first broadcasts, an extravagant cover of the 1966 Beach Boys classic, ''

God Only Knows "God Only Knows" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1966 album '' Pet Sounds''. Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, it is a Baroque-style love song distinguished for its harmonic innovation and its subversion of typi ...

''. This track marked a first-time collaboration between the Warner, Sony and Universal Music labels. She appeared on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

’s long-running ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usua ...

'' programme on 4 October 2015.

Television presenter

In 2014, she returned to

BBC Young Musician of the Year BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010. The competition, a former member of the European Uni ...

as a presenter of the category finals and semi-final of the competition alongside

Miloš Karadaglić Miloš Karadaglić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милош Карадаглић, born 23 April 1983), sometimes known just by his mononym Miloš, is a classical guitarist and Deutsche Grammophon/ Mercury Classics recording artist from Montenegro. Biograph ...

. In 2016 she co-presented BBC Young Musician with

Clemency Burton-Hill Clemency Margaret Greatrex Burton-Hill (born 1981) is an English broadcaster, author, novelist, journalist and violinist. In her early career she also worked as an actress. In January 2020 she suffered an AVM brain haemorrhage and underwent eme ...

Festival director

Balsom succeeded Richard Rodney Bennett as President of

Deal, Kent Deal is a coastal town in Kent, England, which lies where the North Sea and the English Channel meet, north-east of Dover and south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town whose history is closely linked to the anch ...

Festival in 2015. She was artistic director of the 2019

, then stepped down in July 2019 to concentrate on performing and recording.

Honours and awards

Balsom was appointed an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...

(2015) and

Anglia Ruskin University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...

, and is an Honorary Fellow of the

Personal life

She has a son with the English conductor Edward Gardner. In 2017, she married film director Sir

Sam Mendes Sir Samuel Alexander Mendes (born 1 August 1965) is a British film and stage director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2000, Mendes was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and he was knighted in the 2020 New Years Honours List. That s ...

. Their daughter was born later that year.

Discography

*''Music for Trumpet and Organ'' (

Debut, 2002) *''The Fam'd Italian Masters'' ( Hyperion, 2003) - With Crispian Steele-Perkins *''Bach works for Trumpet'' (EMI Classics, 2005) *''Caprice'' (EMI Classics, 2006) *''Haydn and Hummel Trumpet Concertos'' (EMI Classics, 2008) *''Italian Concertos'' (EMI Classics, 2010) *''Haydn and Hummel concertos'' / ''Albinoni's Oboe Concerto Op. 9 No. 2'', transcribed for trumpet / ''Vivaldi's Violin Concerto Op. 3 No. 9'', arranged for trumpet and instrumental trio (

BBC Music Magazine ''BBC Music Magazine'' is a British monthly magazine that focuses primarily on classical music. History The first issue appeared in September 1992. BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC was the original owner and publisher toget ...

, 2010) *''Seraph: Trumpet Concertos by Arutiunian, MacMillan, and Zimmerman'' (EMI Classics, 2012) *''Alison Balsom'' (EMI Classics, 2012) *''Sound the Trumpet: Royal Music of Purcell and Handel,'' also marketed as; ''Kings & Queens'' (EMI Classics, 2012), and ''Sound the Trumpet-Gabriel Edition'' (Warner Classics, 2013) *''Paris'' (Warner Classics, 2014) *''Légende'' (Warner Classics, 2016) *''Jubilo'' (Warner Classics, 2016) - Christmas Album including Fasch, Bach, Torelli and Corelli concerti *''Royal Fireworks'' (Warner Classics, 2019) *''Magic Trumpet'' (Warner Classics, 2020) *''Quiet City'' (Warner Classics, 2022)

Awards

*Artist of the Year, Gramophone Classical Music Awards, 2013 *Nordoff Robbins O2 Silver Clef Award, 2014 *Best Female Artist,

, 2009, 2011 *Classic FM Listeners' Choice Award, Classic FM

Gramophone Award The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and refe ...

2006 *Young British Performer, Classical BRIT Awards, 2006 *Feeling Musique Prize for quality of sound in the 4th Maurice André International Trumpet Competition *Concerto finalist in the BBC Young Musicians Competition, 1998

Equipment

Trumpet: Schilke models E3L E-flat/D trumpet, E3L-4 E-flat trumpet, G1L G/F trumpet, P7-4 B-flat/A piccolo trumpet, S22CHD C trumpet; mouthpiece: Schilke 6A4a.

References

External links

*
Alison Balsom recordings on Warner Classics

The trumpeter shaking up the classical music world
– BBC interview
Brits 2006 homepage

''Libertango'' at the 2009 Proms
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balsom, Alison 1978 births 21st-century trumpeters Alumni of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Alumni of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Brit Award winners EMI Classics and Virgin Classics artists English classical trumpeters Living people Musicians from Hertfordshire Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Royston, Hertfordshire 21st-century English women musicians 21st-century English musicians 21st-century classical musicians Wives of knights Women trumpeters