Where are they now?

Matt King
Principal Percussionist - Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Professor of Percussion- RMSM

Musician Matt King

Towards the end of last summer, whilst 'looking around' in a fairly tedious rehearsal with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, I noticed that I had, not for the first time in my career, committed the cardinal sin of the music business and left my cell phone on. Unfortunately, my phone - being something of an unfashionable model - didn't have any kind of discreet setting so I had to creep out of the concert hall in order to switch the thing off.

Leaving my mobile phone on that day was one of my best mistakes ever, because the second I was outside of the hall the phone rang. I found it to be a very familiar voice on the other end, one that I had not heard since I left Portsmouth Band all but ten years ago, who reintroduced himself as Pete Best - now Major RM and Director of Music(Training).

It seemed that there was an opportunity to consider applying to take on the position of Professor of Percussion and Snare Drum at RMSM. I think it took me about three seconds to think about it before I declared myself interested. Diaries were then consulted and after visiting the school for an interview and demonstration of my teaching skills, I was appointed to start in September!

So, briefly, that is how I came to find myself back in Portsmouth at the School of Music after leaving to pursue a career in the symphonic world in September 1995.
I joined the Royal Marines in the tragically ill-fated month of September 1989 as a very proud (if somewhat inept) member of Troop 2/89. I am privileged to come from a particularly military family who were somewhat assuming that, as the youngest of five boys, I would naturally follow in the decidedly established family tradition and join the British Army.

When I mentioned to my father, however, that I was considering trying out the Royal Marines he was tremendously encouraging and very supportive as I went through the selection process.

I somehow managed to get through initial training at RMSM as the 'Best New Entry' and even graduated as the recipient of the Prince's Badge. I then went on to spend a few really happy years at the bottom of the Percussion pile at Pompey under the inspirational direction of Capt. David Cole and WO(I) Pete Best.
I am only the second ever Percussion Professor at the RMSM, following in the distinguished footsteps of Professor Paul Cameron who joined the staff after I left the school, and so as a result, I left the wing pretty much self-taught (some very useful advice from my enthusiastic instructors notwithstanding).

When I had been in the band for a while, I went to a Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert in the Portsmouth Guildhall with a couple of other guys from the band. That evening changed all of my professional aspirations. I watched a level of playing that I quite frankly hadn't known to be possible. The timpani and the cymbals were suddenly 'musical instruments'. I went back that evening and told the lads how blown away I was by the BSO and so one of them suggested that I wrote to the administration of the orchestra and enquire about the possibility of studying with one of the players of the BSO.

In what seemed no time at all, I found myself making fortnightly trips to Bournemouth to study with the then Principal Timpani, Paul Turner and up to 'The Smoke' to study percussion with Dave Jackson, Co-Principal Percussion of the LSO.

That was obviously a life changing time for me and I found myself becoming fanatical about practising in my spare time and increasingly aware that my long-term dreams perhaps lay within the orchestral scene.

I should also say that I was really enjoying life in Pompey Band and was getting all the time that I wanted to play cricket and rugby with varying degrees of success!
In fact, I was recently reminded of an infamously woeful game of Chiefs and Indians rugby at Portsmouth when my recently-fixed broken nose (sustained whilst playing one of my legendary bad hook shots in a Navy cricket match) was reshaped courtesy of some inauspicious mauling from the Chiefs team.

Meanwhile, back on the concert platform, everything was going well enough until the band went on one of its regular trips to Salisbury. I ruined what would otherwise have been a really nice rendition of 'A Tribute to Stephen Foster' by attempting to play but only succeeding in pushing a full set of tubular bells off the percussion riser during the quietest part of the piece. Incredibly, the band played on whilst Dave Cole gave me the second-ever worst glare that he ever dispatched to the percussion section during my tenure.

I say the second-ever because I think that the boss reserved his finest for the night when, during the quietest moment of the overture at the beginning of a performance at the stunning St. David's Hall in Cardiff, my mobile phone, which was for some reason carefully positioned underneath all of my meticulously laid out timpani sticks, burst into song!

I think that you will agree that I was a real loss to the Band Service when I applied to leave and take up the place I had been offered at Trinity College of Music, London to study Percussion with the collective geniuses of Professors Kevin Nutty and John Chimes (both of the BBC Symphony Orchestra).

The next four years were the most amazing of my life. I got to music college and realised with no little horror that the standard was simply a world away and my chances of graduating from the college with a playing facility capable of earning a place on the professional circuit relied totally on me going right back to the beginning and learning a proper playing technique. During this time I also met a stunning pianist called Clare who has subsequently agreed to be my wife!

The teaching at Trinity was stunning and my two professors used every technique known to man to help me push myself and improve. At the end of my fourth year, having invested as much practice time as was humanly possible, I graduated with a first and the highest mark of the year for my final recital.
I started to work outside of college and fortunately got opportunities to work right across the musical spectrum doing sessions for TV and pop, Big Band, Ballet, Opera, contemporary and of course Symphonic work.

I learned so much from just watching all of the great players that I was privileged to be around make such amazing sounds on any given percussion instrument, that it was impossible not to grow as a percussionist. It was at this time that I was offered a trial with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the position of Principal Percussion.

It was, despite what one might think, a relatively pressure free period because the other 'trialist' for the job were incomparably more distinguished players. There were established Principal and section players from other major orchestras as well as busy freelance players from London seemingly wanting the position so I just considered myself fortunate to be given the chance to come and have a go at being a Principal for a while.

To my astonishment, the BSO offered me the position of Section Principal of Percussion three years ago and, as you can imagine, I hastily accepted before they could change their mind. Being Principal Percussion in a Symphony Orchestra is a simply amazing job. I get to make music with some astounding musicians in some stunning concert halls in this country and tour to other parts of the world. I know that I am so fortunate.

Until I accepted the position at the School of Music, I remained busy freelancing with other ensembles. My return 'home' as it were has allowed me to concentrate on the BSO and teaching which I love, not to mention the fact that my schedule now allows me to have as normal a married life with Clare as is possible for anyone in our profession.

So, that's me. Full circle in every sense! It's still a little surreal to be back where it all began for Musn II King, but I have to say that it is such a privilege returning to this modernised Band Service. Old friends are still the same, the excellent playing standard is still the same and even the unique sense of humour has not been tampered with. Total esprit de corps. After all, in what other walk of life would you leave, be away for a decade and then return back to the fold and get asked to contribute a piece entitled 'Where Are They Now?'

Professor Matt King