Category: Advocates

Adam Rapa is a dynamic performer, composer, producer and educator who has become widely known for the excitement, energy and enthusiasm he brings to stages and classrooms around the world.

Rapa was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He began studying the trumpet at eleven years old, playing professionally at age thirteen and was playing lead trumpet in many of the big bands at Berklee College of Music by sixteen. Rapa has featured at trumpet conferences around the globe and is grateful to have shared the stage and/or recorded with Grammy Award winners Nicholas Payton & Roy Hargrove, Doc Severinsen, Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, and Academy Award winning film composer A.R. Rahman.

“The Muirhead-Wallace Studio Practice mute gives me the most free-blowing and enjoyable experience I’ve ever had with a practice mute. It’s perfectly in tune, and even has perfect slots in the PEDAL register with my 4-valve horn!

I usually find practice mutes completely intolerable, but with this one, I feel like I’m still blowing into a trumpet instead of pushing against a wall. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a small, adjustable “resistor” inside the stem which gives you about a dozen different options for tone quality and resistance depending on how far it’s moved in & out. This is a fantastic innovation that blows all other practice mutes out of the water!
You’ve GOT to try these mutes!”

For further details please visit Adam’s website.

Alison Balsom is a superb advocate, combining technical brilliance with penetrating musicianship – a true poet of the trumpet as well as a formidable athlete.”
(BBC Music Magazine, February 2012).

Twice crowned ‘Female Artist of the Year’ at the Classic
BRITs, Alison Balsom has cemented an international
reputation as one of classical music’s great ambassadors and is ranked among the most distinctive and ground-breaking musicians on the international circuit today. Balsom has also been honoured with numerous awards by Gramophone, Classic FM and ECHO Klassik.

In 2009, Alison Balsom headlined one of classical music’s most celebrated concerts – The Last Night of the BBC Proms – which reached its biggest ever global television audience of an estimated 200 million. In December 2010 Balsom went on to make her US television debut with the Orchestra of St Luke’s on The Late Show with David Letterman – a platform few classical artists have gained access to.

The 2011/12 season saw Balsom make return visits to China where she performed with Lorin Maazel and the National Symphony Orchestra and to the Los Angeles Philharmonic with whom she made her Hollywood Bowl debut. Other season highlights included concerts with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2012/13, Balsom will embark on major international tours of Europe, China and the US with the Wiener Symphoniker, kammerorchesterbasel, Concerto Köln, Scottish Ensemble and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Balsom’s highly distinctive sound earned her much recognition in her early career when she mainly reached her audience through radio broadcasts under the auspices of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. While represented by the Young Concert Artists Trust, Alison caught the ear of EMI Classics with whom she records exclusively. Her internationally celebrated Bach Trumpet and Organ disc of 2005 was quickly followed by ‘Caprice’ which won her further critical acclaim. Alison’s third album, featuring the great pillars of the trumpet repertoire, the concertos of Haydn and Hummel, firmly established her as one of the world’s leading trumpeters. ‘Italian Concertos’ which is made up of Balsom’s own arrangements of Italian Baroque Concertos, became EMI Classics biggest selling album of 2010.

In addition to transcribing and arranging existing works for her instrument, Alison is increasingly
active in commissioning new works for trumpet. Her world premiere performance of James MacMillan’s Seraph at Wigmore Hall in February 2011 went on to become the title track of her 2011 release for EMI Classics. Her latest album, Sound the Trumpet, sees Balsom performs a variety of works by Purcell and Handel with Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert on period instruments. Alison studied trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music, the Paris Conservatoire, and with Håkan Hardenberger.
She was a concerto finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition in 1998 and received the Feeling Musique Prize for quality of sound in the 2001 Maurice André International Trumpet Competition. Alison performs a wide range of recital and concerto repertoire, from Albinoni to Zimmermann and performs on both modern and baroque trumpets.

For further details please visit Alison’s website.

Mauro António Martins was born on the 4th of July, 1995 in Aargau, Switzerland. He initiated his musical studies at the age of ten, playing trumpet in the Philharmonic Band.

In 2010 he joined the Escola Profissional de Artes da Covilhã (EPABI) where he began his studies in euphonium, with Nuno Machado.
In 2013 he wins the schools internal competition and finishes his 3rd year of Basic Instrument Course oriented by Ricardo Antão, attaining the highest grade possible of 20 values (in the professional aptitude exam). In 2014, in his first year of secondary school, he won the first prize in the “Terras de la Salette” contest in the junior 15-18 year old category. At the same year, he won a place to join the Portuguese Wind Instrument Orchestra in which he is the leader of euphonium’s class. In 2015, he wins again the “Terras de la Salette” contest, this time in the seniors 19-26 year old category. At the same year he collaborated with the Teatro das Beiras and he was the musical director of the piece “Loa, Xácara, Bugiganga”, winning the first place with the EPABI Wind Instrument Orchestra in the Filarmónie D’ouro contest.

In 2016 he went to the semi-finals of the ITEC contest (International Tuba Euphonium Association, USA) that happened in Tennessee, USA, in the category of 19 years old and older; he was the only Portuguese and not attending university participant. This contest is one of the most reputable euphonium contests in the world. Was a finalist in Concours tuba tours 2017, prestige categorie.

There are many pieces dedicated to him,highlights the Concert piece for euphonium and orchestra, written by Tiago Rasinhas, which premiered was with the Covilhã Symphony Orchestra, and the Concerto for euphonium e clarinet solo, written by Pedro Santos, winner of the Compostion Contest for Wind Orchestras 2012. The Concerto was recorded on CD in August 2016.

Mauro had performed as a soloist with orchestras in Portugal (continental and islands) such as Orquestra Sinfónica da Covilhã conducted by Carlos Salazar; Covilhã Wind Orchestra conducted by Luís Clemente; internship with the EPABI Wind Instrument Orchestra conducted by Francisco Ferreira; the EPABI Orchestra conducted by Francisco Luís Vieira and he performed as a soloist in the Stage of Orchestra of A-dos- Francos, Wind philharmonic band SFUR in pico island (Azores), etc…

He concluded the secondary school attaining the highest grade possible of 20 values on his Recital/ Professional Aptitude Exam. Participated in Masterclasses with the following teachers: Bastien Baumet, Josep Riera, David Childs, Steven Mead, Eduardo Diz, James Gourlay, Thomas Rüedi, Demondrae Thurman, Mike Forbes, Anthony Caillet, Adélio Carneiro, Ilídio Massacote, Sérgio Carolino, João Aibéo, Romeu Silva, Bruno Pascoal, Anne Jelle Visser and others. He also worked with the following conductors: Hélder Silva, Afonso Alves, Luís Clemente, Francisco Luís Vieira, José Eduardo Gomes, Tiago Correia, Francisco Sequeira, André Granjo, João Cerqueira, Hugo Assunção, Paulo Martins, António Saiote, Carlos Garcés Fuentelsaz, Francisco Ferreira and others.

He had participated in numerous internships and masterclasses as a teacher.

Mauro is currently on the 1st year of Graduation in Music – Instrument (1st cycle) in ESMAE – Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo do Porto, studying with Sérgio Carolino and Ricardo Antão. Is a member of the ensemble “How Low Can You Go?”, artistic director Sérgio Carolino.

Endorser of the stores Music Arte and Brassfeelings. He is an Adams artist.

In his career highlights the importance of Sérgio Carolino, Luis Oliveira, Thomas Rüedi, Demondrae Thurman and Ricardo Antão.