CONDUCTING
Colin studied conducting with Arthur Butterworth and Richard Evans on the Accrington & Rossendale (Sheffield University) Band Studies Course, and was 
awarded a 1st Class Honours degree, majoring in conducting and composition in 2007. He has guest conducted many bands, including the Lympstone Band, and was the Assistant Musical Director of the Devon Youth Wind Orchestra until 2011. He was Musical Director of the Exeter Railway Band for several years, and spent a year as the Musical Director of the newly reformed Lympstone Academy Brass – a feeder band for the award winning Lympstone Band. He was also the Musical Director of Tiverton Town Band prior to moving to Somerset in 2016.
This picture shows a memorable moment as Colin is presented with the composing competition trophy for his winning composition ‘The St Michael Ley Line‘ at the 60th SWBBA Annual Championships in Torquay by Ray Kingdon – the Chairman of the SWBBA, and the brass band composing legend that was Goff Richards. Colin is very proud of this moment. Goff sadly passed away in 2011, and the brass band world still mourns his passing.
Colin conducted the City of Exeter Railway Band on that occasion – which caused some consternation amongst other bands, who thought Exeter had an ‘unfair advantage’ having the composer conducting them. This, of course, was utter nonsense, and Exeter Railway Band didn’t win anyway!
COMPOSITION
The winner of the 2006 SWBBA Diamond Anniversary composer’s competition and runner-up in the RM Band Service 2008 ‘Soar’ composing competition, Colin accepts commissions for composition for any musical ensemble. Whilst specialising in brass band composition, Colin is equally at home writing for concert and military wind bands, symphony orchestras or choral ensembles, and writes for smaller specific ensembles as well, including quartets and quintets.
Prices for bespoke compositions are available on application dependent on what’s required.
ARRANGEMENT
Arrangements can be produced for any given combination of instruments or voices – particularly useful for youth/junior ensembles or quintets/quartets where a particular piece may be requested but a suitable arrangement cannot be found. Check out my published works on my shop page.
Arrangements will cost between £300 – £1000 dependent on what’s required.
Colin specialises in writing and arranging for percussion – often an area in older published works where the scoring for percussion is found to be lacking or at best frequently left to the player’s own devices – a little scary for the uninitiated. Extensions to or re-arrangements of existing percussion parts can be undertaken.
Colin is always mindful of copyright restrictions on other people’s original work, and only publishes arrangements of such pieces with full copyright agreement.
TRANSCRIPTION
Colin has spent a lot of his time transcribing pieces for the extensive library published by Musikverlag Frank. He was the main transposer for Musikverlag Frank, and has done over 350 transpositions for them.
Is your soloist playing his favourite piece from the concert pitch piano score, or in a different key to the published version? These issues too can be overcome!
Transcriptions will cost between £50 – £200 dependent on what’s required.
Colin currently uses state of the art Avid Sibelius Ultimate technology to write out and engrave his music, and just needs a copy of the score, or if that’s lost too, a recording or YouTube link to work from.
BACKING TRACKS
Colin can also write very specific backing tracks for any instrumentation, including ethnic world instruments, to be played in theatre productions, rehearsals, shows, musicals and reviews – as he did for Exmouth Musical Theatre Company for their rehearsals for Jesus Christ Superstar.
This is especially useful when budgets are tight (as they inevitably are) and a whole band/orchestra would be prohibitively expensive, or if a small group or just a piano just wouldn’t be enough. Live music is always best – but occasionally this is a good alternative. Likewise, available rehearsal backing tracks aren’t always exactly right for your specific requirements either – Colin can sort this out too – just ring him!
Prices for backing tracks are available on request and are dependent on size/duration of work required. Just provide a synopsis of what is required and a quote will be provided by return, to include any copyright licence fees. Colin uses Avid Sibelius Ultimate and ‘Noteperformer5’ to produce his soundtracks, and the results are scarily true to a real, live performance, but with no wrong notes!
All of the songs and publications by Dan Callow are published by and are available from OneLife Music, and you can listen to a selection of Colin’s recorded works by visiting the Soundcloud page on this site.
