Cesare: La Hieronyma

Wim Becu plays on a bass trombone made in 1994, based on a 1640 instrument.

Abbie Conant is one of the leading trombonists of our time. Her choice of repertoire for this CD journeys through 400 years of varying styles from baroque to modern times.

In 1980 Abbie Conant was awarded the solo trombone chair of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under Sergiu Celibidache. The story of her 13-year struggle for equal treatment and the same pay as her male colleagues in the Munich Philharmonic appeared in the press, as well as on TV and raised her profile internationally. She performs as a concerto soloist, recitalist, improviser and performance artist. Since 1992 Abbie Conant has been a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany.

Christian Lindberg, who has done more than anyone to establish the modern trombone as a solo instrument, bought his first sackbut 30 years ago, and already then dreamed of recording a baroque programme. Now the opportunity to do so has arrived – largely due to Lindberg’s encounter with the violinist Richard Tognetti and his Australian Chamber Orchestra. The Lindberg / ACO collaboration has already been documented on disc in a programme of 18th-century trombone concertos (BISCD1248), a release described in International Record Review as ‘sensational … one of those recordings which make criticism a glorious irrelevance.’