Named as one of Classic FM's Rising Stars of 2023, Lucy Humphris is one of the UK’s most innovative and versatile young performers. Her fresh and original approach seeks to widen the instrument’s repertoire and push beyond both musical and technical boundaries.
Her debut album, Obscurus, released in March 2023, is an exploration of the obscured, in a programme which showcases some of the most incredible trumpet writing of the 20th and 21st century, as well as several reimaginings of older, more mainstream works for other instruments, arranged for trumpet and piano by Lucy, with pianist Harry Rylance.
An ever-curious musician, the list of her performances and collaborations is a varied one. Most recent collaborations include: touring Rebecca Saunders' Yes, and the world premiere of Georges Aperghis' Heart Blowing with Ensemble Musikfabrik; performing on William Fox's 2021 album of Cecilia McDowall's organ works; with The Ligeti Quartet for their 2023 album of works by Anna Meredith, Nuc ; working with composer Bethan Morgan-Williams for a piece for the Royal Academy of Music's 200 Pieces project; joining folk artists Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith for their annual winter show Awake Arise; and producing an album of chiptune sea shanties with The Longest Johns. Working with percussionist and filmmaker Tim Williams, she travelled out to the Orkneys to create a film for her album recording of Peter Maxwell Davies' Litany for a Ruined Chapel between Sheep and Shore.
Lucy has given recitals at the International Trumpet Guild conference, Klub Zak, Lichfield Festival, Brighton Festival, Petworth Festival and Winchester Cathedral, as well as performances at Charlton House and St James’ Church Piccadilly. An invitation to Dartington International Festival allowed her to work with several composers with a view to commissioning new trumpet works; something she is passionate about. In 2019 she returned to Dartington to perform Birtwistle and Cage, also working with Birtwistle, The Gildas Quartet, and young composers in creating new works for trumpet and string quartet. She has also performed at the Imagine Music festival at the Southbank Centre, in a new one-woman show titled The Secret Life of Trumpets, introducing the trumpet to children through storytelling.
Lucy graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with First Class Honours (BMus) in 2019, where she was a recipient of the Winifred Agnes Disney scholarship. In 2012 she was one of the youngest to win the acclaimed London Symphony Orchestra Candide award. The following year she was invited on a scholarship to the Chosen Vale International Trumpet Seminar, which she returned to in 2016.