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Music club

TRUMPET recitals are not so common, but it was certainly worth hearing the one given in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday, 30 November, by Matilda Lloyd and pianist Leo Nicholson.

Matilda appeared as a soloist in the 2016 Proms just after graduating and her fluency and assurance were evident from the start of her Dolgellau programme in three pieces for piccolo trumpet by Giovanni Battista Martini.

Now on standard trumpet, a 1935 sonata by Karl Pilss gave her every opportunity to explore the instrument’s lyrical range.

A lighter mood was introduced in the second half with Sammy Nestico’s jazz-inflected Portrait of a Trumpet, followed by Leo’s rendering of Gershwin’s easygoing ‘Three Preludes for piano solo.

Before the showcase finale of Goedicke’s Concert Etude Op 49, Matilda introduced a special technique required for the first of Deborah Pritchard’s Seven Halts on the Somme.

Aiming her opening phrases at the strings of the piano, she elicited sympathetic resonances that echoed faintly but clearly throughout the hall.

This was a timely choice in a programme that gave full expression to the trumpet’s many voices and to both musicians’ skills.

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