Alison Balsom’s new album, Quiet City, is a direct response to a society in flux. “I don’t think it would have been the same album two years ago,” the trumpeter tells me. “It would have been more virtuosic and less personal. The isolation, the confusion and the disquiet in the music resonated.”
Balsom has a refreshing presence that has revived classical music over the past two decades, since she was a finalist in the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition in 1998. We meet at the Wigmore Hall. Balsom orders tea and is excited to talk about her new five-album deal with Warner Classics.
Quiet City is a collection of tracks that reflect a particular time in American music. It showcases works by composers from the late 1930s onwards such as Aaron Copland, who wrote the title track, Miles Davis and George Gershwin. Balsom likes that they were political. “They were looking out to the rest of the world, drinking in the influence of different societies. Things are becoming more siloed and polarised and the diversity of sound and influence in this music feels like a precious thing.”
In the context of what is happening in Ukraine, she has been thinking even more about how “music is a universal language” and musicians can act like “artistic diplomats”. “Musicians almost take for granted that we have such a precious commodity — that music is a universal language. It’s the language that takes over when words have run out.”
The Leonard Bernstein track Lonely Town is another highlight of the album. Balsom’s husband, the director Sam Mendes, chose it. “He played it to me and I thought that’s exactly what I’m trying to create with this album.” Five years into their marriage he is still moved by her playing: “Every time he listens to Quiet City he’s in floods of tears. So he can’t listen any more. He’s not getting a copy,” she says, laughing.
Advertisement
Do they share ideas? “Every day! We’re honest critics,” she ponders then chuckles. “We’re not scared of saying what we really think. Sam is so senior in what he does that people are almost nervous to challenge him. But I don’t have any of those worries.”
Balsom started free trumpet lessons aged seven at her primary school in Hertfordshire. She is distressed by the diminished role of music in the curriculum. “It’s one of the biggest crimes of my generation. People need to understand that this is a whole ecosystem and it’s no good just throwing money at one end of it. An enthusiasm for culture needs to be encouraged from schoolchildren through to the profession.”
She fears that young people from low-income families will experience increasing cultural poverty: “It will become a thing only for those whose parents can afford to put them in front of lots of different opportunities to play and learn.” It’s a great loss, when music has the power to “unlock potential” in children and in all of us. In the title track of Quiet City Balsom’s trumpet represents the sound of a man’s conscience. It’s a sound you want to follow, to get a true sense of who we really are.
Elizabeth Alker presents Saturday Breakfast, Northern Drift and Unclassified every week on Radio 3. Quiet City album is out in August and Alison will perform at it on 11 April at the Royal Albert Hall and on Classic FM live
Classical dates for your diary
Dorothea Röschmann
The Grammy award-winning German soprano will open Leeds Lieder festival with Schumann’s Lieder der Maria Stuart, accompanied by the pianist Joseph Middleton.
Apr 28, leedslieder.org.uk
Advertisement
Zadie Smith and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Music and literature combine for a night where the novelist explores the music, ideas and artists that have inspired her.
Apr 22, barbican.org.uk
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
A performance of the Icelandic composer’s atmospheric pieces inspired by the barren landscape of her homeland, by the Royal Northern College of Music.
May 7, wigmore-hall.org.uk
