Richard Marshall has just returned home from a trip to the Eternal City of Rome to play with the Italian Brass Band.

The current National and European Challenge Section champion welcomed the Black Dyke star to their home to present a series of masterclasses and in-depth rehearsals with their cornet section players as well as perform in concert with the band under MD, Filippo Cangiamila.

Fantastic time

Commenting on the trip Richard told 4BR: "As you can imagine, I had a fantastic time. What a friendly and fine bunch of musicians — all eager to learn and soak up any advice I could give on traditional brass band sounds, tonality, technique and practice regimes.

They are all very fine players in their own right, but still eager to learn more and more so that it benefits their band. It was great to be a part of."

Nobody better

In response the band's Vice-President Giovanni Celestino added: "The goal of Richard's visit was to increase our understanding of what is the best way to approach brass band cornet playing.

Nobody could do that better than Richard and after the weekend can certainly say that there was a great improvement!"

His experience, talent and musicality have greatly increased our knowledge of the 'British' cornet sound which we now hope to try and emulateMD Filippo Cangiamila

British sound

Meanwhile, MD Filippo Cangiamila added: "The training experience for the cornet section has been so illuminating from all points of view. His experience, talent and musicality have greatly increased our knowledge of the 'British' cornet sound which we now hope to try and emulate.

Richard is a magnificent artist and teacher, but also a very kind person and fiend to us."