Born in Lancashire, Dean joined Banks Brass
Band as a young cornet player. He later joined the Leyland DAF Band
and then became Principal Cornetist with Besses o'th Barn Band,
moved to the Sellers Engineering Band under Philip McCann and
played for the world famous James Shepherd Versatile Brass whilst
studying with Murray Grieg at The Royal Northern College of
Music.
During his post-graduate studies at The
Guildhall School of Music he was honoured to gain the position of
Principal Trumpet with The European Community Youth Orchestra (now
EUYO), touring across South America and Eastern Europe between
1994-96 as well as the rest of Europe and Britain.
In 1997 Dean became Principal Trumpet at Welsh
National Opera, and in summer 2017 will have been in his position
for 20 years. He is also Professor of Trumpet at the Royal Welsh
College of Music & Drama.
He has extensive experience as a soloist, most
notably- Haydn's Concerto for HTV, Henze's Requiem at St. David's
Hall, 'Summon the Heroes Fanfare' by John Williams at Llangollen
International Festival, Copland's 'The Quiet City' with the Welsh
Symphonia, Performance at The NATO Summit for Barack Obama, Soloist
& Conductor of Haydn's Concerto at the Dora Stoutsker Hall,
Private audience with Prince Charles at Gregynnog, Video Games
Concert & X Factor Gala at the CIA.
Dean has played with many notable symphonic
orchestras including BBC NOW, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic,
Aix-en-Provence Festival, BBC Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony,
Manchester Camerata, Welsh Camerata, Sinfonia Cymru, Welsh Chamber
and Welsh Pops Orchestra.
Dean is the trumpeter on many of Bryn Terfel's
CD's and albums by Charlotte Church, John Owen Jones and Gildas. He
has appeared on S4C's 'Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol' and for the BBC
most recently on the Max Boyce 'Rugby World Cup Warm Up’ and played
in a 30th anniversary concert with Welsh rockers ‘The Alarm’ at the
Wales Millennium Centre.
Amidst his influences are Maynard Ferguson,
James Shepherd (Black Dyke Mills), Maurice Murphy (London Symphony
Orchestra) and the world-renowned trumpeter and tutor Kristian
Steenstrup from Denmark.