Lucy Humphris

Trumpeter Lucy Humphris is known for innovative programming that seeks to expand the trumpet's repertory. She released her debut solo album, Obscurus, in 2023. Humphris was born in Winchester. She was highly musical as a child and has said that she would probably have picked any instrument available to her as a child, but the only lessons available to her in her primary school were those on brass instruments. Her commitment to the instrument deepened when she joined the Hampshire County Band. In 2012, at the age of 15, she won the London Symphony Orchestra Brass Academy Candide Award. The following year, she earned a scholarship to the Chosen Vale International Trumpet Seminar, and she studied with various leading trumpeters there over several stints. Humphris earned the Winifred Agnes Disney Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, from which she graduated with honors in 2019. In 2021, she made her recording debut on the Naxos label with organist William Fox on the album Cecilia McDowall: Works for Organ. By that time, Humphris was already a seasoned performer. She appeared at the 2018 International Trumpet Guild Conference in San Antonio, Texas, performing a novel program that included several of her own arrangements for trumpet of works originally in other media. At the 2019 Dartington International Festival, Humphris worked with composer Harrison Birtwistle and performed several new works. She has worked with folk musicians as well, and in 2021, she appeared on the album Land Shanties by the a cappella folk group, The Longest Johns. Humphris released her debut solo album, Obscurus, on the Rubicon Classics label in 2023, featuring works by Leos Janáček, Olivier Messiaen, Filippos Raskovic, Toru Takemitsu, and Peter Maxwell Davies; she played Maxwell Davies' Litany for a Ruined Chapel Between Sheep and Shore, and she traveled to the Orkney Islands to record a video for her performance of that work.
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