TOMBEAU after Bach

About George Shrapnell:
George Shrapnel graduated with distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2021 on the Guildhall Advanced Instrumental Studies postgraduate programme (saxophone), as well as being awarded the Concert Recital Diploma for excellence in his Final Recital. Tutors whilst at The Guildhall included John Harle, Mick Foster, and Nick Moss. Prior to the Guildhall, he studied Music at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he was awarded first class honours, under the tutelage of Paul Bartholomew, Mick Foster, Ian Gardiner, and the late Jeremy Peyton-Jones.
After his studies, he returned to Guildhall as a Junior Fellow, assisting John Harle as arranger/orchestrator for the interdepartmental Bauhaus Band, where he contributed several arrangements and orchestrations including the Bauhaus Festival 2022.
As a portfolio musician, George has a varied career as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger. He plays all variants of saxophones, clarinets, and flutes, and works regularly across the genres of theatre, big band, jazz, classical, and contemporar y music. He enjoys collaborating and playing in a wide variety of musical environments, performing in London's West End, The Barbican Concert Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, The Royal Albert Hall, many of the UK's regional theatres, and BBC Radio 3. As an active session musician, he has recorded woodwinds both remotely, and in studios.
As a composer and arranger, George has been commissioned by groups such as the Delta Saxophone Quartet (now in their celebrator y 40th year). Many of George's compositions and arrangements are published by Saxtet Publications - incorporating Clarinet and Saxophone Classics Publications, Alea Publishing, and self-published on Sheet music plus. He is as passionate about both original music composition and arranging existing music, he particularly enjoys using vocal music as a tool for enabling vocal and lyrical woodwind playing.

From the composer :
Tombeau is a response to Bach’s seminal Violin Partita No. 2, specifically the Chaconne. The title Tombeau, is itself a compositional style commemorating the death of a notable individual. Bach’s Chaconne is thought to be a Tombeau in memor y of his first wife, Maria. My music references elements of the original work and uses these and other compositional styles to fuse a link between "classical" and "jazz", creating essentially a written-out improvisation.
This piece was written in 2025 and dedicated to Victoria Samek.

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