BTF2026 Featured Artist - Apollo Premadasa Bulbena
Posted 21 August 2026 by Chris Sowerby
Apollo is a twelve-year-old musician, trombonist, conductor, composer, and cellist. He studies trombone with Michael Buchanan, Enzo Turriziani (Principal Trombone of the Vienna Philharmonic), and James Buckle; conducting with Sian Edwards; and cello with Mariona Camats. He is also a student of the Royal Academy of Music, where he participates in ensemble training.
He has won prizes in national and international competitions as a trombonist, cellist and composer. He has been invited to perform in Germany, Singapore, Malta, Italy, Canada and the United States, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. He passed his Grade 8 Trombone examination with Distinction at the age of eight.
Since 2024, Apollo has been selected for three consecutive years as Principal Trombonist of the Vienna Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Opera Project, performing each summer at the Salzburg Festival.
His trombone training has included regular individual tuition with Joseph Alessi (Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic and Professor at The Juilliard School), with whom he had monthly lessons for a period, and weekly lessons with Peter Steiner. He has also had individual lessons with Ian Bousfield. In addition, he has attended masterclasses and specialist courses with trombonists from across Europe.
In 2022, Apollo was selected as one of six active participants in the Joseph Alessi Masterclass organised by Opera North in Leeds. He conducted the trombone ensemble and performed as a soloist with ensemble accompaniment at the Alessi Seminar in Fossano, Italy. In November 2024, he won the Ian Bousfield Masterclass Competition, organised by the British Trombone Society.
Apollo is a trombonist with the Orquestra del Segle XXI, an orchestra of young professionals based in Barcelona, with which he tours annually. He is also a member of the Bruckner Akademie Orchester, based in Munich, and tours and performs with the orchestra at the Herkulessaal.As a conductor, Apollo is one of the conductors of the London Concert Sinfonia, with which he performs monthly, and one of its composers-in-residence. He has conducted ensembles, chamber orchestras and symphony orchestras in concerts across the UK, Spain, Italy and Finland. In December 2024, he conducted the professional Orquestra Simfònica de Sant Cugat in six concerts during its tour of Catalonia.
As a composer, Apollo's First Symphony, War Child, dedicated to children living through war and displacement, was premiered in London in January 2023. His chamber, choral, symphonic and solo works have been performed in the UK, Spain, Italy and the USA. His Second Symphony was premiered in London in January 2025.
His string quartet Pandemia (2020), dedicated to the heroes and victims of the pandemic, was premiered by the NHS Quartet at the Great Hall of St Bartholomew the Great and subsequently featured by the BBC. The work was also premiered in the United States by the Carya Quartet.
Apollo sees the trombone as a melodic instrument and is always exploring how to find and express its own voice.
![]()