Innovatrombone recently moved to the Valencian town of Alzira (Spain), where the eighteenth edition of the Spanish Brass Festival 2019 was held. The SBALZ is currently one of the most important events dedicated to brass instruments in Spain and has been hosted since its creation by the Spanish Brass quintet.
SBALZ 2019 Poster
The reason for our visit on this occasion was to meet and interview Michel Becquet (France), who for this edition was one of the invited trombonists.
When we named Michel Becquet we were talking about a living trombone legend. Michel is today one of the best trombonists in history, the data proves it, Becquet has won the most prestigious competitions in the world dedicated to trombone.
Michel Becquet:
Bio:
From an early age Michel played the horn and the piano under the tutelage of his father, who was a professional trumpet player, until he decided to play the trombone at the age of 10. After several years of study at the Conservatoire de Limoges, Becquet entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 15, where in a very short time he obtained his diploma.
MB won all the international trombone competitions (Toulon, Munich, Geneva and Prague). At the age of 18, he became a solo trombone with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, and shortly thereafter joined the orchestra of the Paris National Opera.
In 1989, he left the Paris Opera to devote himself to pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik (Cologne). In 1990, he was invited by Gilbert Amy to become head of the brass department at the CNM in Lyon, where he created the Cuivres Français.
Michel Becquet is currently combining his teaching activity at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon with his career as an international soloist.
Below you can see a video of Michel Becquet playing Franck Martin’s trombone ballad at the 1995 Tokyo International Trombone Summit.
Vídeo:
The interview:
The story of this interview goes back a few months when we were given the news that Michel Becquet was going to visit Spain, specifically the Spanish Brass Festival. We did not want to miss the opportunity and asked Inda Bonet, co-organizer of the event if we could access Michel Becquet to ask some questions during the days of celebration of SBALZ and it has been. We thank from here to the organization of the event and especially to Inda Bonet for her great collaboration.
Talking and in this case interviewing Michel Becquet was not an easy task for us, taking into account all the public of our community of Innovatrombone to which I would later be directed. That is why we wrote a short series of questions trying to make them appropriate and identified with most of our trombonists.
We thought it was a good idea to ask an artist of Michel’s stature how he remembered the way he taught before and now, as well as the trombonists who had influenced him the most.
Another important question for us was to know how it feels to know that a person has won all the most important international competitions in the world and to tell us something about this experience.
In order to make the interview a little more informal, we asked Michel if he remembered any anecdote when he was a member of an orchestra when he was only 18 years old and why he made the important decision to devote himself to pedagogy.
One answer we liked very much was to know Michel’s concept of the Spanish school and Spanish trombonists.
The last part of our talk was to find out how was the experience for Becquet at the Spanish Brass Alzira Festival 2019 and we said goodbye asking Michel for advice for young trombonists who want to succeed with the trombone.
Here’s a video of the interview:
Innovatrombone interviews trombonist Michel Becquet at the Spanish Brass Festival Alzira 2019.
Dear trombonists, we hope you liked the interview and we say goodbye with this video, in which Michel Becquet performs with Jörgen Van Rijen, the concert for two trombones by our collaborator Ricardo Mollá.
Concert for two trombones and orchestra by Ricardo Mollá.
Michel Becquet-Jörgen Van Rijen and the Orquesta de Valencia ITF España 2015.
If you are a trombonist join our community at the following link: Register
Visit our website: www.innovatrombone.com
