bio
Hear from Neil Thompson, Director
I first got into music when I was a wee boy. My grandad was a trumpet player in World War II and he had an old rickety trumpet with every dent you can imagine after having travelled the world. He picked it up and started to play it for me when I was about eight years old and I just thought it was really cool that someone could make such a great sound from what was basically a bit of metal. So I picked it up and had a go myself and what started out as a bit of fun from a kid trying to copy his grandad playing an old trumpet ended up with me starting to really enjoy the creation of making a noise using a musical instrument.
In my primary school in Arbroath, I got my own trumpet and started playing properly from there, as well as piano, which I did throughout my entire school years. Music is really all I had my sights on and eventually, I was able to go and study at the Royal Academy of Music in Glasgow.
developed my love for rock music and contemporary music. I realised that it was here that my passion for music lay; and it was here that my later projects, including my Celtic-rock folk band Bahookie and Symphonix Rock Orchestra, stemmed from.
After two years in the making, Symphonix Rock Orchestra is a culmination of everything I’ve been involved in in my entire musical career. I wanted to create a high-end, contemporary rock orchestra where all the big anthems will be played in a new, fresh way. In Scotland there’s nothing like it - and there never has been.
Of course, there’s so many classical and regional amateur orchestras, but nothing like a performance-based, rock-themed orchestra.