4BR has been informed of the death of the highly respected musician and teacher Alan Lumsden. He was 86.

During a varied musical career he taught brass three days a week at Ashmole Comprehensive School in London, running two brass bands for over 70 regular students.

Gloucester Academy

He also went on to found the Gloucester Academy of Music with his wife Caroline, going on to inspire thousands of students over a 40 year period.

A self taught multi-instrumentalist he was a distinguished music professor and was once filmed by the BBC playing pieces on 115 instruments for the Guinness Book of Records to raise money for charity. He also provided some of the sound effects for the Ridley Scott film 'Alien'.

Gulag

He made several trips to Russia, selling clothes on the black market in order to pay for rare editions of lesser known Russian composers — a hazardous undertaking that once saw him caught and given a suspended sentence of three years in a Siberian gulag.

During the late fifties and sixties he was a trombonist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and went on to play with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé, the BBC Scottish Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and many more.

A leading specialist in early brass and woodwind instruments, he was a founding member of the London Trombone Quartet, the London Cornett and Sackbut ensemble and the London Serpent Trio as well as an expert on the Ophicleide, Russian music and 16th century ornamentation.

Alan was a highly accomplished musician and performer whose standing in the profession, in his own right, commanded both respect and admiration Prof Derek Aviss OBE

Highly accomplished

He was a Professor of Sackbut at the Royal College of Music and Professor of Recorder and Early Music studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire.

Professor Derek Aviss OBE, President of Gloucester Academy of Music, said: "Alan was a highly accomplished musician and performer whose standing in the profession, in his own right, commanded both respect and admiration.

His partnership with Caroline in the founding of GAM and its predecessors is of great significance to all who have benefited and have love for its four decades of exceptional music education. Alan was a very special man; he will be greatly missed and long remembered for his outstanding contribution and achievements."