Irish Trumpet player Dearbhla Nolan has been based in Berlin since 2010, where she enjoys an active performance career, specialising in chamber music and baroque trumpet. A founder member of Berlin International Brass, with whom she has performed in Sweden, UK, Ireland, Poland and around Germany, she also performs regularly with ensembles such as Auris et Aulis, Berlin Baroque, Chemnitzer Barockorchester, Concerto Brandenburg, Kammerphilharmonie Berlin Brandenburg, Neues Barockorchester Berlin, Neues Kammerorchester Potsdam, Märkisches Barock, and many more. Her regular chamber music partners include Simon Harden, organ, Luisa Sereina Splett, piano, and The Walshaw Trio (with Margaret Bruce, piano and Nathalie Merandon, flute). 

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Despite the challenges of the pandemic situation, Dearbhla has remained busy, recording her debut album, 'Cornerstones: Chamber Music Masterpieces', with Luisa Sereina Splett in October 2021 and April 2022. The album, released in September 2022 on the PrimTon label, was made possible by a grant from NeuStart Kultur.

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Dearbhla's latest chamber project is a new brass quintet, The Brass Collective, with Berlin-based colleagues from USA, France and Spain. The album 'International Voyage: Around the World with The Brass Collective' was recorded in September 2022, and released in April 2023 on the PrimTon label, thanks to a grant from NeuStart Kultur and GVL.

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Pre-pandemic highlights from 2019 included concerts at the MaerzMusik Festival of new music in Berlin, recitals with organist Simon Harden at the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Lismore and at Monkstown Parish Church (Ireland), concerts with The Walshaw Trio in Walshaw (UK), Castletown House (Ireland) and at the Praz sur Arly Festival in Combloux (France).

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2018 was a busy year for Dearbhla with concerts in St. Paul's, Knightsbridge (London) with The Berlin Trio, performing, amongst other repertoire, the premiere of Jonathan Clinch's Introduction and Allegro, written for The Berlin Trio. There were concerts in Walshaw with Margaret Bruce, and at the Centre Bagatelle with Berlin International Brass. 2018 also saw Dearbhla appear as soloist with Berlin Concert Brass and with the Cappella Academica.

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Dearbhla is passionate about new music. Indeed her quartet, Berlin International Brass, have commissioned and premiered works by Rene Baker (Chicago), Marcelo Nadruz (Brasil), Hazel Leach (UK), Stephen Crowe (UK) and Elisabeth Angot (France). In 2010 she was invited by trumpet player John Wallace to join him in performing the world premiere of Elias Shoot's A Little Labyrinth for two trumpets, at Dartington Festival, where Dearbhla was a bursary student.

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Dearbhla holds degrees from Queen's University Belfast and City University London (taught through the Guildhall School of Music and Drama), and has recently completed a postgraduate diploma in baroque trumpet, studying with Johann Plietzsch at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, thanks to a grant from the Deutsche Musikrat. She has received masterclasses from Håkan Hardenberger, Gabor Tarkovi, Mark Inouye, Chris Martin, Fritz Damrow, Jeroen Berwaerts, Craig Morris and Thomas Hooten and many more. During her studies she received many scholarships and in 2010 placed 2nd in the Yamaha Brass Bursary at the Feis Ceoil (Irish classical music competition).

 

Dearbhla plays on trumpets by Schagerl (rotary) and Schilke (piston).

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-August 2023.

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