ABOUT JUNIOR PRIME BRASS

Junior Prime Brass (JPB) began in 2010 as a quintet for the children and pupils of Prime Brass, and in 2011 developed into the standard brass dectet you hear today. The players, who are aged 13 to 18, are currently drawn from Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. Within the ensemble past and present, there are members of Aldeburgh Young Musicians, Britten Sinfonia Academy, National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, as well as the junior departments of the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Members have had success in competitions such as BBC Young Musician (one winner and two finalists) and the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Award. JPB alumni have gone on to study at music colleges such as the Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama; and at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St Andrews and Warwick.

JPB gives regular performances around Cambridgeshire in venues such as King's College Chapel, Ely Cathedral and the West Road Concert Hall, and has appeared in the National Festival of Music for Youth in Birmingham several times and at the Primary Proms in London's Royal Albert Hall. In November 2016, JPB returned to the Royal Albert Hall to perform in the Music for Youth Proms (formerly the Schools Proms).

From its foundation in 2010 until 2019, JPB was coached and conducted by Christopher Lawrence, who played tuba in Prime Brass from 1997 to 2011. Prime Brass trumpeter Gavin Bowyer took over as Musical Director in September 2019, taking JPB to the 2020 Music for Youth online festival with their Lockdown performance of ‘Sing Sing Sing’ by Luis Prima. The group returned to ‘live’ performance at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival in July 2021 and has continued to perform regularly at Ely Cathedral, West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge and at All Saints Church in Harston. JPB is currently under the Musical Directorship of Trombonist Ryan Higgin, who took on the role from 2023.. 

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Current Members ​

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Trumpet(s)

Daniel Barret, Joe Wickham, Edward Taylor, Toby Dilly, Sam Martin

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French Horn

Adrian Kwong

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Trombone(s)​

Tom Hammond, Harry Sunderland, Theo Taylor

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Tuba

Samuel Lewes

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Past members (year of leaving):​

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• Trumpet Jake Hatter (2012), Noah Lawrence* (2014), Dan Jenkins (2014), Olivia Duffy (2014), Zoë Perkins (2016), Joe Hegan (2016), Matthew Harding (2017), Isaac Bateman (2017), Ewan Parkin (2019), Jasper Eaglesfield (2019), Joshua Cusworth (2019), Amelie Bentham (2020), Freddie Ball (2021), Isaac Holt (2021), Rosemary Ball (2022), Isabel Juckes (2022),  Maddy Goatman (2023), Daniel Roughley (2023), Toby Fitzgerald (2023), Niamh Willis (2024)

• Horn Millie Lihoreau* (2016), Annemarie Federle (2020), Mikey Halton (2023)

• Trombone Luke Fitzgerald* (2015), Ben Landymore* (2015), Justin Brassett (2015), Fintan Duffy (2016), Ben Holford (2017), Sam Stokes (2018), Cameron Scott (2019), Colin Tuchel (2019), James Rocca (2021), Thomas Bateman (2022), James Wilkinson (2022), Anna Middleton (2023), Amy Keller (2023)

• Bass Trombone Rob Tovey (2012), Katy Surridge (2015), Archie Blackaby (2018), Jonny Lovatt (2021), Claire Middleton (2024)

• Tuba Matthew Grenz (2014), Jonathan Surridge (2019), Rohan Dahiya (2021), Robert Halliday (2024)

• Percussion Nick Cowling (2014), Jacob Fitzgerald (2019), George Garnett (2019-2020), Jordan Ashman (2021), Tom Mason (2023)

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* Founder member