Alison Balsom

Among the most exciting classical musicians of our time, Alison Balsom was first inspired by Dizzy Gillespie to become a virtuosic trumpet soloist. 'I've spent my whole life trying to show how versatile the trumpet can be,' she says. 'It's only limited by your imagination.' In this selection from her award-winning albums, she plays gems from the Baroque repertoire on both natural and valved instruments.

With an album of celebration – both joyful and solemn – trumpeter Alison Balsom again declares her love for the baroque era, which she calls “the golden age of the trumpet”. Joining Handel’s exuberant Music for the Royal Fireworks are works by two other German-born composers – JS Bach and Telemann – and by the London-born Henry Purcell. “These baroque composers knew the instrument they were writing for,” says Balsom. “There is such value in searching out the sound that they would have heard themselves, with the intention of authenticity. When it comes together it is utterly thrilling.”

Trumpet Star, Alison Balsom, Transforms The Traditional Italian Baroque Concerto In This New EMI Classics Release Following the popular and critical international success of her Haydn and Hummel concertos recording, Alison Balsom has recorded a program of Italian Baroque concertos. In this new recording, Balsom, plays various popular concertos originally composed for the violin or oboe by Vivaldi, Tartini, B. Marcello, Albinoni and Cimarosa, accompanied by the Scottish Ensemble. This collection provides an apt vehicle for the award-winning trumpeter's characteristic brilliance and grace.Alison Balsom, an exclusive EMI Classics recording artist, studied trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music, the Paris Conservatoire, and with Håkan Hardenberger.

Festive baroque or sparkling virtuoso: the trumpet has many faces, and it is still an absolute exception to find a woman among the great virtuosos of this instrument. The young British trumpeter Alison Balsom is one of these exceptional phenomena. In 2006, Alison Balsom was crowned "Young British Classical Performer of the Year" by the quality watchdogs of classical music; the British Gramophone magazine also awarded her a Gramophone Award 2006. Their current album "Caprice" combines exotic and high virtuosity, lyrical and romantic.

In the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, Alison Balsom celebrates the heroic era of the Baroque trumpet in works by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Henry Purcell (1658 or 1659-1695), whose anthems, odes, sinfonias and operas have provided the music for numerous royal celebrations from their own day to the present.