I would like to let as many people as possible know about a special concert on October 5th at the Royal Academy of Music.

It is 20 years since the untimely death of John Fletcher. Although his legacy is still apparent in the great tuba playing that we enjoy today, the John Fletcher Trust wish to remember him more specifically by staging a concert of brass music.

It will be performed by friends of Fletch, past winners of the ‘John Fletcher Prize for Outstanding Brass Player’ awarded annually by the NYO and students of the RAM. Items include Strauss’s Fanfare, Stadt Wien, the Gregson Tuba Concerto, a new commission for tentet by Ben Ellin (an NYO Fletcher award winner), the first recent performance of movements from Elgar Howarth’s Brass Belles for Mezzo Soprano and Brass Quintet sung by Margaret Cable (John’s widow), an Oren Marshall improvisation and, of course, some tuba ensemble music, including some of John’s arrangements played by a collection of London pro tuba players.

Please come and support the event and tell anyone that may be interested in either celebrating the occasion, supporting the John Fletcher Trust, or simply hearing some great brass music.

Roger Harvey

Friday 5th October 2007, 7.30pm
Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London
Tickets £6 (concessions £4), with all profits to the John Fletcher Trust, available from the Academy’s Box Office, telephone 020 7873 7300
Further details from the RAM