Hyperion Records

Christopher Larkin joined the London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble in 1973, ten years after its foundation, and together with Crispian Steele-Perkins took over its direction in 1975. He is also a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In parallel with his playing career he early on developed a passion for unearthing original music for brass. His conducting debut came in the 1991 BBC Proms when he directed the London Gabrieli Brass in works by Félicien David and Cherubini, the fruits of research at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. He has devised and conducted many brass and wind programmes for his BBC Symphony Orchestra and LGBE colleagues and recorded them for BBC Radio 3, Radio Suisse Romande, Turkish Radio, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Radio Television Hong Kong and Radio Televisión Española. The most fun, by far, was being able to use his knowledge of Charles Ives’s wind music for the 1996 BBC Ives Festival, The Unanswered Question. In one hectic day he created an open-air re-enactment of a George Ives brass band collision in London’s Leadenhall Market, conducted students of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in a concert of nineteenth-century American band music, and directed the BBCSO in part of the opening concert. During the last decade he has researched and directed four CDs of original brass music for Hyperion Records.