Since the mid 1970s Jeremy West has been a passionate
advocate for the cornett (the muchoverlooked wind instrument held
in highest esteem during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries).
He has played a leading role in re-establishing this instrument as
a recognised virtuoso and ensemble instrument and now has forty
years playing and recording experience with many of Europe’s
leading renaissance and early baroque ensembles. Often regarded as
a ‘pioneer’ of his instrument, he is a founder member of His
Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts – the leading ensemble of its
kind, now over 30 years old – and Principal Wind Player with the
Gabrieli Consort and Players for their earlier repertoire.
He has more than 60 recordings to his credit and concert
performances have taken him to more than 30 countries across four
continents.
In addition to his playing career,
since 1991 Jeremy has directed the instrument-making workshops of
the late Christopher Monk. These workshops are devoted to the
research, development, reproduction and world-wide distribution of
all instruments in the cornett and serpent families. Examples of
the workshop’s output, and in particular of the extraordinarily
popular resin cornett – an instrument which has inspired and
enabled the majority of today’s players – may be found from New
York to New Zealand, Scandinavia to South America.
His most recent challenge and interest
lies in playing music of the 19th and early 20th centuries on
original brass. To this end, equipped simply with an Eb horn from
France, dated 1855, he plays with consummate alacrity for the
Queen Victoria’s Consort.
Jeremy is on the teaching staff
at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and at the
Guildhall School of Music & Drama. And he is a Musician in
Residence at Girton College, University of Cambridge.
In his spare time Jeremy plays horn
for the City of Cambridge Brass Band, where he enjoys the continual
challenge of repertoire which is quite outside his professional
experience and in addition to this, the opportunity to meet
with like-minded people from all walks of life.