Onlinearticle, www.ipv-news.de , email: [email protected]
Internationale Posaunen Vereinigung, Germany
Affiliate Society of ITA
Founded 1988
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interview with Mike Buchanan
The interview was done by Jamie Williams for IPV-Printjournal Nr. 40, Winter 2015,
December 2015
MB: Michael Buchanan
JW: Jamie Williams
JW: First of all a great big congratulations to you for winning first prize at the Munich
ARD International Music Competition! You have most certainly been through a lot in
terms of preparation, the experience of being there, and the emotions that come with
winning it! I would like our readers to have a glimpse of how it was for you in Munich,
but before that, could you tell us a bit about your background? Where were you born
and raised? Do you have a musical family and what influence and roles do you family
play in your musical journey?
MB: Thanks very much for the kind words and for the opportunity for this interview! Sure I can
tell you a bit about my background.
I was born and raised in England, a little west of London and just below Oxford. I also studied
from age 12 away from home at a music school in the farmlands of England's 'West Country'.
So I was really lucky and got both the crazy bustle of London and the still of the country in my
upbringing. My family are very close and have been totally supportive of my music dreams
from the start, although none of them are musical. My dad is an architect and my mum is a
lawyer. I count my blessings in that aspect because although my parents are wise people, they
really knew nothing about music or becoming a musician. It was all driven by me. They were
totally un-pushy, and happy for me to play exactly when and how much I wanted and all on
my own terms.
JW: Could you tell us a bit about your musical background in terms of youth orchestras,
teachers, and other competitions you partook in?
MB: I had many important aspects to my development, but the most formative was definitely
my time at school. I went to Wells Cathedral School, which is a specialist music school in
England that acts basically like a conservatoire for young people. There, we all played in very
good symphony orchestras, big bands, brass ensembles and so on, all while going to school
together, being wonderful friends and getting up to normal teenage mischief. That was an
amazing few years for me. My teacher there was a man called Alan Hutt who, alongside my
current teacher Ian Bousfield, was definitely the main playing influence I have had. His
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Onlinearticle, www.ipv-news.de , email: [email protected]
Internationale Posaunen Vereinigung, Germany
Affiliate Society of ITA
Founded 1988
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------teaching was so sophisticated in that, looking back on it, I never realised I was ever being
taught. He was so subtle in his manner of advice that you always felt like each idea for
improvement was always yours, so you had the courage of your convictions as you went
along. He transformed my embouchure without ever mentioning anything about it to me!
JW: It is written on your Facebook page that you are a graduate of Cambridge. Only
clever musicians can outsmart the other competitors and convince the jury and public
resulting also in winning the coveted "Publikumspreis." Why did you not chose to study
in a music conservatory? Did you want simply a broader education or do you have any
plans to explore other fields professionally?
MB: I went to Cambridge because, as I left school, I wanted to become a conductor, so a solid
academic knowledge therefore seemed important. Pretty quickly after I started there though I
realised how much I was missing playing, and decided to become a trombone player again. I
stayed there though because of how totally fascinating and challenging I found the course.
Also, conservatoire had always worried me because I couldn’t understand how were supposed
to fill your day: what would happen once you’ve tired your lip out after 4 or 5 hours of playing
and still have 19 hours left to fill? I loved Cambridge because it was always a case of trying to
cram almost three lives – academic, performance and social – into a 24 hour day. What I learnt
there now colours every aspect of how I play and think about music.
JW: Who are your main influences in life? What inspires you to develop?
MB: Wow that’s a tough question! I’m not actually sure I have a role model or primary
inspiration as such. Obviously my teachers Ian Bousfield and Alan Hutt have had enormous
influence on me, but I suppose in general it’s pretty simple in that I am totally driven in life by
my love of music. It sounds cheesy but that’s the truth. I spend lots of time listening to great
artists and great recordings (though I actually virtually never listen to trombone music – I
don’t think I even own any trombone CDs), and I suppose take all my inspiration and drive
from there. I feel like I’ve learned such a lot just through listening. At various points I've tried
to figure out how to use David Oistrakh's way of phrasing and using vibrato, for example, or
Maria Callas' way of pacing drama in sound. And when you then transfer it back to the
instrument, whenever it’s a violinist or a singer’s musical voice I have in my head, I always find
I’m more inspired to try and push past limitations.
JW: You won an orchestra position in Glasgow at a young age and decided to continue
your studies in Bern. How do you manage both at the same time? Do you find it
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Onlinearticle, www.ipv-news.de , email: [email protected]
Internationale Posaunen Vereinigung, Germany
Affiliate Society of ITA
Founded 1988
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------important to continue having a mentor/teacher once you enter the professional
orchestra?
MB: I don’t go to study in Bern to talk and work on my job. Actually, we virtually never even
mention it in my lessons. I’m still studying there because that’s where Ian Bousfield teaches,
and I’m still studying with him because I still have so much to learn from him. As a player, he
is obviously a completely extraordinary talent, but he also has an amazing quality as a teacher
in that he understands exactly how he achieves what he does, and also seems to understand
why you are not. The class in Bern is a fantastic standard, so I like to go back whenever I can
for that reason too.
JW: Could you tell us about your ARD preparation? Did you play for different teachers
and did you train together with other competitors as a team? How long in advance did
you begin to prepare and how many hours did you devote daily to your preparation?
MB: I had many grand plans and lists of how I was going to prepare for the ARD, but as
always happens, I ended up not organising hardly any of it. I had two fantastic lessons with
Jonas Bylund, where we worked on the programmes, but other than that and spending two
days with Ian Bousfield on it in August (as well as many phone calls), I just did all the work in
private. I begun preparing intensively about five weeks before the competition, but tried to
make sure that most of the pieces I didn’t know I’d already learnt before that time. I practised
for about 4 hours a day, trying to get through either one or 2 rounds a day, and during the
last ten days spent probably 75% of my time just performing the music to an imaginary
audience. Actually though, I think my most important work was at a desk with a pencil. I
analysed virtually every piece I played, and really took pains to try and justify every decision I
took interpretively and academically. I was so glad I’d done that, because rather than making
me more tied to a particular way of playing a piece, I found it actually freed me more because
it meant I just knew the music so much more deeply than I otherwise would have.
JW: What happens to you psychology and physically when you get nervous? How do
you deal with it?
MB: I used to suffer terribly with nerves, so now have very specific ways of working my way
around them. I find that my mindset for performance is a really different one to how I
generally am, so it takes a lot of mental energy for me to enter a zone where I can stride on
stage feeling totally free. I do a lot of visualisation on the day of a performance, running over
and over in my mind from the walk from the warm up room, through the point where I’m
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Onlinearticle, www.ipv-news.de , email: [email protected]
Internationale Posaunen Vereinigung, Germany
Affiliate Society of ITA
Founded 1988
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------taking my last breath before walking on stage, to finally being on stage to performing. I
always find that when I first visualise it, I always feel a sense of terror. Then, after a couple
more times through I feel like it is no longer going to be a shock or scary. Because I’ve done
this so many times by the time I walk on stage, I generally feel then like nothing can get me,
and as though I’m as free to be as imaginative as I would be anywhere else in life.
JW: What is going on in the mind of the ARD first prize winner before going out on
stage and when playing in the competition? Do you think of it as another performance
or perhaps that you must prove that you are the best among all competitors?
MB: I always tried my absolute hardest never to think of the competition as a competition. An
important performance is such a challenging and all consuming event anyway, I actually
found it relatively easy to focus on the performances simply as concerts. There’s enough to
think about in any concert already. Having said that, competitions are always a bit about
allowing the animal in you to come to the fore and to try and jump that little bit higher than
those around you. I didn’t hear anyone else play in the competition itself – I hate hearing
those I’m competing against, it makes such anxious listening! – but I did hear a lot of them
practice. It was immediately obvious to me that whoever won the competition was not going
to win it on technique, since were so many players with fantastic technical facilities. Hearing
that, uncomfortable as it was, made me constantly renew my vow to simply focus on being
the most expressive I could be, and take my pitch to the jury away from “look I can play the
trombone!” to “look, I can move you!”
JW: What were your emotions as you learned that you advanced from one round to the
next and eventually were given the best possible result?
MB: That ten day period was just one long massive rollercoaster of emotions. There was
excitement, happiness, fear, exhaustion, panic and enjoyment all mixed into every day. The
moment I heard that I’d won the competition was I was the last competitor stood backstage,
and I jumped like a little child and lost all sense of self-control until the moment I had to walk
onstage to take the award. That night was amazing.
JW: Please tell us some things you learned from your experience in Munich? Perhaps
you can give some words of wisdom to others in search of better competition skills.
MB: I don’t want to speak out of turn by saying this, but I often feel when I’m speaking to
brass players about performance in general that they are making it much harder than it needs
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Onlinearticle, www.ipv-news.de , email: [email protected]
Internationale Posaunen Vereinigung, Germany
Affiliate Society of ITA
Founded 1988
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------to be. Not splitting notes and playing a strong top F should never, ever, be the goals of a
performance. Sure, both are important, but only to the extent that achieving them allows the
music you’re making to speak less disjointedly. The moment you move your mindset away
from technique and onto focusing on playing as musically, freely and enjoyably as you can,
you will realise that not only did you make far fewer mistakes, but the ones that did happen
really don’t matter anyway!
JW: What does it mean to be an ARD prize winner? Does one simply receive money and
a nice certificate or are you guaranteed concerts as a soloist? Do you plan to use this
prestige to your advantage in order to get more solo invitations?
MB: Well the money and certificate was certainly great – I bought myself a nice swanky phone,
so thanks ARD! – but the best aspect is definitely the invitations that come out of it. I've got
some exciting concertos coming up, including with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin
in the Berlin Philharmonie and the Radio-Simfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, and recitals
including at the Schwartzwald Musik Festspiele and the Beethovenfest Bonn. I’d certainly like
to push the solo aspect of my playing as far into a career as I possibly am able to.
JW: The ARD is certainly the largest and most important competition but you are only
22 years old. Are you simply enjoying what happened in Munich or motivated more
than ever to really accomplish much more?
MB: The ARD win felt so fantastic. I think like lots of musicians, I find it really easy to get totally
obsessed with the work that needs to be done and the things I’m not yet happy with in my playing.
Winning the competition felt like coming up for air briefly and having the opportunity to just stop and
enjoy where my playing is at this moment. I’ve done that now, so yes I’m definitely motivated to
move on to the next thing! I generally try to avoid specific “win/lose” ambitions because I don’t think
it’s helpful to feel like you’ve failed if they don’t work out. I am definitely motivated to constantly try
to play and make music better than I currently am, and in the meantime I will just hope and dream
that doing so will allow me to perform at lots of exciting places and events!
JW: It has been a pleasure for the time to be the one asking the questions. Enjoy your
success. Thank you for taking the time to share so much with our readers. I look
forward to meeting you personally in Lausanne!
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