Classes in Australia, Spring 2017

At ANAM, in Melbourne.

At the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Adams International Festival of Percussion 2016

Bending Bach’s Basslines launches at RCM

New timpani for Scottish Chamber Orchestra

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra have taken delivery of their Henry Potter refurbished timpani.

Berlin Phil @ RCM

During the Berlin Philharmonic’s London Residency in February 2015 we were delighted to sit-in a rehearsal of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, and back at the Royal College of Music we were treated to masterclasses given by Wieland Welzel and Raphael Haeger.

Wieland Welzel and Jan Schlichte.

Wieland Welzel with RCM percussion students

Raphael Haeger

Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts

Concert and recording, Wroclaw, 2011

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. OAE / Sir Roger Norrington

In rehearsal

Helsinki, 1 September 2013

2nd timpani Scott Bywater.  Percussion Glyn Matthews, Ben Hoffnung, Richard Horne.

1st Movement

2nd Movement

3rd Movement

4th Movement

5th Movement

Edinburgh University Instrument Museum

Pete Woods and I recently visited Edinburgh University Instrument Museum.  They have an enormous collection, including some weird and wonderful timpani and percussion instruments, the like of which we had never seen before.  We are very grateful to the Curator, Dr Jenny Nex, for showing us around.  Both drums below were made by George Potter, we estimate at the end of the 1800s.  We suspect that their tuning mechanisms, although beautifully engineered and manufactured, actually weren’t that succesful due to the difficulty of spreading the tension evenly all the way around the drum.  Hence these types of designs fell out of fashion quite quickly.

OAE Publicity photo 2015-16

Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, directed by Joshua Bell

Sir Neville Marriner’s 90th Birthday Concert, Royal Festival Hall, April 2014.

Royal College of Music Festival of Percussion

Here are some photos from my talk on the history and development of timpani at the 2012 Festival.  Timpani were generously loaned by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Ben Hoffnung, Bill Lockhart, Sarah Stuart and Julian Fairbank / Majestic Percussion.  Photos by Chris Christodoulou.

LSO Film “The Show Must Go On”: On Tour with the LSO in 1912 and 2012

The LSO were supposed to travel on the Titanic…..

Tony Bedewi using two of my Hawkes original timpani as he plays the part of Charles Turner, the LSO’s timpanist and diarist in 1912.

And here is the complete film;

Beethoven Symphony no. 4, OAE / Jurowski

Filmed at Théâtre du Champs Elysées, Paris.

Beethoven Symphony no. 7, OAE / Jurowski

Filmed at Théâtre du Champs Elysées, Paris.

Wagner Das Rheingold, OAE / Rattle

Baden Baden, 2004

Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah with LSO / Sir Colin Davis

Barbican Hall, 2006

Shell LSO Competition 1988

Selected recordings

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* 5th Symphony     ** 4th Symphony

British Pathe News from 1951 – Henry Potter’s workshop

This film shows the Potter’s workshop in West Street, near Leicester Square in London.  Pete Woods (once again of Henry Potter’s) began his apprenticeship here in 1968 and the men shown in this film were his major influences.  The expertise that led Sam Potter to found the company using his son’s name in 1810 has been passed down in just six generations.

British Pathe News from 1939 – making vellum and parchment

On tour with ASMF

Photography credits

With many thanks to the photographers and film makers who have allowed me to use their work; Stephen Tasker, Chris Christodolou (RCM), Tommy Pearson, Monika Rittershaus (Berliner Philharmoniker), Will Schofield, Glyn Matthews, Angus Bremner (SCO) and Zen Grisdale.