An interview with

Peter Moore

A debut album ten years after winning BBC Young Musician; why the wait?

It’s something I always wanted to do, but I got caught up in other things. I think at 12 I was a little bit green; you’ve so much more to learn and pick up. A couple of years after the competition I had a lot of opportunities, I was travelling about all over the place and did it without thinking about it. Then all of a sudden I was 14/15 and I retreated for about a year and a half, got my head down and started working quite hard again, and that was good for me I think.

Tell us about your programme.

I couldn’t come up with a list of works that really slotted in a certain bracket, and I thought why doesn’t the bracket just be pieces I’ve always wanted to record? It’s things I get a real buzz playing, and sentimental ones like the Gräfe, which was one of the first pieces I ever did with my first teacher. I’d also been exploring the vocal lieder and that’s something I wanted to do. I could have put on the old trombone favourites, but I wanted to open it up and show that there are sounds you possibly didn’t know could happen on the instrument.

Does the trombone sometimes get a bit of a raw deal?

Of course, and I crack all the jokes about trombonists being first in the pub, and having no musical refinement, but it works on the flip side as well because you get people that open their minds, listen to it, and say ‘oh wow, that’s amazing!’ Then hopefully they go home and listen to recordings or come back to the next concert – and you’ve done your job.