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European Championships
2002:
Dobson’s Choice – Young English composer takes Euro title:
Date Posted: 09.05.02
 The
21 year old Simon Dobson, who comes from a brass banding family
in Bodmin in Cornwall was crowned the European Composer of the year
at the Palais des Beaux Arts on Friday night.
Simon who was brought up playing the cornet with the Bodmin Town
Band won the 1500 euro top prize and the trophy for his work entitled,
“Four Sketches – A Homage to Britten”.
We managed to speak to the newest European titleholder and he was
understandably delighted that he had won the award, especially as
the standard of the composers he was up against was so high.
“I’m chuffed to bits”, he told us. “I was really
pleased just to win a place in the Final and I didn’t really
think I was in with a chance of actually winning. The performance
of my piece by Brass Band de Buizingen and Luc Vertommen was superb
and so well measured and interoperated. I’m sure that had a
lot to do with it winning.”
The piece takes the form of four interlinked sections entitled,
“Fanfare”,” Prayer”, “Funeral March”
and “Finale” and lasts about 9 minutes in length. Simon
wrote it with roughly First Section bands in mind and was especially
pleased that he was informed that the players and conductor of the
band really enjoyed rehearsing and playing it. The win means that
there will be extra exposure for this talented young man, who is
currently in his second year at the Royal College of Music and who
is studying composition under Timothy Salter.
“I’m learning do much from studying under Timothy Salter,
and he has been a great help and inspiration to me. I had certain
ideas about the work right from the outset and knew the musical
picture I wanted to portray. What I’ve been taught by Timothy
lad me to explore those ideas to the full and as such the composition
became the better for it.”
Asked what the future now held, he was a little uncertain, but it
will most probably include a further commission to possibly write
a work for the 2004 First Section contest at the Championships.
He will also be getting phone calls from other interested parties
for sure, and he is looking forward to hearing the Band of the Welsh
Guards perform his newly written “Ceremonial Fanfare”.
The London Philharmonic has already used one of these in concert
this year.
“I’m hoping now to have a few quiet days off before hopefully
going back to visit my parents in Cornwall in a few weeks. Most
of the prize money has gone – student life can be expensive
in London! – but I hope to be able to put at least some of
it towards the cost of an electric piano – I need it for further
compositions. I’m also going to continue playing in the college
brass band and hopefully doing more work with the classical quintet
I’m involved in.”
A busy young man then – and a highly talented one too.
The European Composers Competition
Result:
Simon Dobson (England)
Pascal Gendre (Switzerland)
Idar Torkangerpoll (Norway)
Iain Rayner (England
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