INTERVIEW
When and where was your first concert with the MCO? Aix-en-Provence in France, where we played Don Giovanni with Claudio Abbado in the summer of 1998. It was the MCO’s first large-scale project.
What do you need to feel at home while on tour? My computer, sports clothing to exercise and a good book.
The first piece of music you fell in love with: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6.
What would you do if you weren’t a musician? I love architecture and design. I often spent hours as a child doodling floor plans for my dream houses, so I suppose an architect or an interior designer would have been my other choice.
What is the best thing about being a musician? Doing what I love for a living and spending much of my time listening to other great musicians playing wonderfully at my side.
BIOGRAPHY
After studying in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and an Aufbaustudium in Mannheim for two years, Mark Hampson worked at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester from 1993 till 1996, before moving to Spain.
Mark has been a member of the orchestra in Gran Canaria ever since, and is also a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played every project with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and has collaborated with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, NDR Hannover, Cadaquéz Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Ensemble Modern, and with most of the orchestras in Spain. This is in addition to solo performances at the Portuguese National Trombone Festival in Braga, and the Brazilian National Trombone Festival in Belem.
He is also a member of various brass ensembles including MCO Brass, Canarian Brass Quintet and LFO Brass. He has played with World Brass and founded the South Africa National Youth Brass Ensemble.
Mark is on the staff of Brass Academy Alicante and the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar and previously taught at the Folkwang Musikschule in Essen. His other teaching activities include workshops in Seville and Zaragoza in Spain, at Griffith and Adelaide universities in Australia, plus annual visits to Beijing Central Conservatory and Shanghai Conservatory. He is a tutor at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza, the Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria Academy, and the Jove Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya. He has also given workshops in Singapore, for the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar in Venezuela, and is Artistic Consultant to the Filarmonica Joven de Colombia and Director of the Brass Ensemble of the Filarmonica Joven de Colombia.
