Ian Rae
Ian Rae started playing the trombone at Manchester Grammar School when he was 14, and within two years auditioned successfully for the National Youth Orchestra where he first met Eric Crees. A highlight of that period was a performance of Le Sacre du Printemps under Pierre Boulez. After studying electronics and computing at the University of Durham he joined the BBC as an audio technician, quickly rising to the rank of senior TV sound mixer and ultimately Head of Sound at BBC Pebble Mill (now long demolished!). Although he was a founder member of Birmingham-based Gemini Brass and continued to lead its trombone section and undertake theatre work in the evenings and casual engagements at weekends, during the day he was unfulfilled behind a desk away from artists and producers and moved to a music production role in Local Radio giving air time to performers who had not enjoyed any before.
His experience of helping young rock musicians to tune their guitars led him to his second career as a peripatetic teacher for Birmingham City Council in the prosperous days when it boasted an in-house brass department of fifty staff. He was soon conducting on Saturday mornings and spent fifteen years with the Birmingham Schools' Concert Band, a 60-strong outfit for which he wrote dozens of arrangements all of which are now archived on the Merritts Hill Music website, along with the further ten-piece arrangements he made for Gemini Brass.
In February 2020 his Pacific Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra received its première in Birmingham to favourable reviews.
Since the eighties when he acquired his first alto trombone, he has avidly promoted its use not only in all cases where orchestral composers intended it, but in ensemble playing too.
His experience of helping young rock musicians to tune their guitars led him to his second career as a peripatetic teacher for Birmingham City Council in the prosperous days when it boasted an in-house brass department of fifty staff. He was soon conducting on Saturday mornings and spent fifteen years with the Birmingham Schools' Concert Band, a 60-strong outfit for which he wrote dozens of arrangements all of which are now archived on the Merritts Hill Music website, along with the further ten-piece arrangements he made for Gemini Brass.
In February 2020 his Pacific Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra received its première in Birmingham to favourable reviews.
Since the eighties when he acquired his first alto trombone, he has avidly promoted its use not only in all cases where orchestral composers intended it, but in ensemble playing too.
