Concert: Lucy Humphris (trumpet) and Benny Vernon (trombone)

Lucy Humphris (trumpet) and Benny Vernon (trombone) 

Their concert will include some of the most dazzling and virtuosic works for brass instruments. 

Benny will play Xenakis’s ‘monster of a piece’, Keren and Berio’s showpiece for trombone, Sequenza V. There are theatrical elements in Beria’s classic piece: ‘the trombonist must not only evince his instrumental skill – he must also have a sense of sorrowful humour’. Berio dedicated the piece to the memory of Grock, the great clown. 

Lucy will play music by Henze, Takemitsu and Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘Litany for a Ruined Chapel between sheep and shore’. Maxwell Davies wrote, ‘The title refers to the ruined medieval chapel on the Holms of Ire, Sanday..… I imagined the music being played in the ruin, open to the skies, in the vast stillness of that haunted land and seascape.’ Named as one of Classic FM’s rising stars of 2023, Lucy Humphris is one of the UK’s most innovative and versatile young performers. 

Benny Vernon is a member of the multi-award winning trombone quartet, Slide Action. He has also performed with Aurora and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.