Teachers 2026
James Fountain
Trumpet
Principal Trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra, James Fountain is also Professor of Trumpet at the Royal College of Music, a member of the highly acclaimed brass ensemble Septura and the innovative new music group Neoteric Ensemble.
James grew up surrounded by music, in particular brass bands and began playing the cornet at the age of three. As a youngster, James was Principal Cornet of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and the GUS Brass Band before becoming Principal Cornet with the world famous Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band aged just 17.
After moving to London in 2012 to study Trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, James was appointed as the Principal Trumpet of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra just three years later. He was featured as a concerto soloist on numerous occasions with the Royal Philharmonic and other solo appearances have taken him around the world, with concerts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Kuwait, Japan and the USA, as well as regular trips across Europe.
Also in demand in the recording studio, James can be heard performing on several Film, Video Game and TV soundtracks collaborating with composers such as Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Alan Menken and Howard Shore.
After spending five years with the RPO, James accepted the position of Principal Trumpet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra before moving to the LSO in 2021. James' journey from brass band musician to the LSO's highly illustrious Principal Trumpet position sees him follow in the footsteps of some of his brass playing heroes including, Philip Cobb, Maurice Murphy, Rod Franks, Howard Snell and Willie Lang.
Roman Rindbereger
Trumpet
Roman Rindberger has been professor of trumpet and brass chamber music at the MUK - Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien (Music and Arts Private University of the City of Vienna) since 2012, as well as trumpet player in the ensemble Mnozil Brass. His tours with Mnozil Brass have brought him to the stages of all the world's major concert halls and music theaters, including Suntory Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonic, KKL Lucerne, Burgtheater Vienna and, of course, Vienna Musikverein and the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has worked in every style imaginable, from baroque music to contemporary and experimental compositions.
As an orchestral trumpeter, he has been active in numerous orchestras over many years, such as those of the Zurich Opera and the Munich State Opera. He has played with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and many others.
Through this he has learned a lot about the different cultures and traditions of these orchestras and now passes this on to his students in order to be able to give them as comprehensive a picture as possible of the different styles and musical influences. Especially in auditions you have to be able to hit the right style depending on the country and tradition in order to be convincing.
Many of the students he has coached in recent years have already been able to implement this training very effectively, and to find success at international competitions, as well as winning spots in renowned European orchestras.
Furthermore, as a certified trainer, Roman Rindberger offers his students various methods - complementing the musical work - such as the Wim Hof Method, Oxygen Advantage and Wingwave, in order to make top performance possible, on a mental and physical level as well.
Markus Maskuniitty
French horn
Markus Maskuniitty began his music studies in the Rauma Youth Band at the age of nine and later studied with Timo Ronkainen at the Sibelius Academy. Among his other influential teachers were Radovan Vlatković and Michael Höltzel.
Maskuniitty is a prizewinner of several international competitions, including the ARD Competition in 1994. He was named Brass Player of the Year in Finland in 1992.
He joined the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester as principal horn in 1990. While on tour with the orchestra, Claudio Abbado was impressed by Maskuniitty's playing and invited him in 1993 to audition for the principal horn position of the Berlin Philharmonic. The position was won by Stefan Dohr, and Maskuniitty became his successor at the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Maskuniitty moved to Berlin in 1994, after holding the principal horn position of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 1993. In 1997, he joined the Berlin Philharmonic as principal horn alongside Stefan Dohr, but returned in 1999 to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, where he remained until 2007. In the summer of 2000, he was also engaged by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
In 2007, Maskuniitty joined the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra as successor to the legendary Ib Lanzky-Otto. He has also been a member of Stockholm Chamber Brass (2000–2010) and the Berlin Philharmonic Octet.
Maskuniitty has premiered, among others, horn concertos by Jukka Linkola, Harri Wessman, and Jorge Torres Sáenz, as well as a double horn concerto by Andrea Tarrodi. He was appointed Professor of Horn at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in 2000, and today many of his former students play professionally in several European countries.
Maskuniitty's recordings include a concerto CD (BIS) with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Sakari Oramo (nominated, among others, for the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2020), a recital CD of Nordic-influenced music (BIS), chamber music recordings with Stockholm Chamber Brass (BIS), and the premiere recording of Penderecki's Sextet (Naxos). In addition, his solo horn playing can be heard on numerous recordings by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, including the 1998 live recording of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic under Günter Wand.
Peter Moore
Trombone
'Moore displays an eloquence and nobility that one might have thought impossible except by the human voice,' effused BBC Music Magazine. Indeed, his sensitivity of expression, command of technique and versatility has made Peter Moore one of the most exciting and well-respected exponents of the trombone today.
Born in Belfast and brought up in Greater Manchester, Moore was part of the world-renowned Brass Band culture in the North of England - experiences which proved crucial to his rapid development as a very young player. He came to international attention in 2008 when, aged 12, he became the youngest ever winner of BBC Young Musician, kickstarting a solo career that continues to go from strength to strength. A busy schedule has since seen him perform with some of the Europe's leading orchestras, including the BBC, London and Lucerne Symphony orchestras, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra. He has also given recitals at some of the world's most prestigious venues and festivals: Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Cologne Philharmonie, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, London's Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, the Spoleto Festival USA, Vienna's Musikverein and Zurich's Tonhalle, to name a few. Meanwhile, tours have taken him as far as Australasia, China, Japan, South America and South Korea, and from 2015 to 2017 he was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
Moore's repertoire stretches from the early Baroque via Romantic lieder transcriptions to contemporary works. A proud exponent of new music, he has premiered trombone works written for him by Francisco Coll (Chanson et Bagatelle), Roxanna Panufnik (When You Appear) and Dani Howard (Trombone Concerto) and many others. He also gave the UK premiere of Sir James MacMillan's Trombone Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, and the European premiere of Joe Chindamo's "Ligeia" with the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. He continues to collaborate closely with composers to fully realise the potential of the trombone on the solo stage.
Concerto highlights include performances in Suntory Hall, Tokyo with Sir Simon Rattle and the BBC Proms with Vasily Petrenko - the first trombone soloist at the festival for nearly 20 years. The performance was widely praised: 'There are very few players with the charismatic presence and variety in their sound ... who can hold interest through long phrases as Moore always does,' wrote The Arts Desk. The Times noted Moore's 'hot lyricism', while the Telegraph admired how he 'married the elegance of a ballroom dancer with the lyrical tenderness of a violinist'.
Moore's debut album Life Force was released in June 2018. Accompanied by James Baillieu, the record features a selection of lieder arranged for trombone and piano as well as works originally written for trombone. The album earned a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine, while Gramophone praised Moore's 'genuine sympathy' and 'long, carefully phrased lines'.
Moore is the former Principal Trombone of the London Symphony Orchestra, joining in 2014 as the youngest ever player. After 10 years, he resigned in order to focus on his career as a soloist. He is currently a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London and has given masterclasses all over the world in institutions including the Juilliard School, Paris Conservatoire, and New England Conservatory.
Peter Moore is a Getzen International Artist and performs on the Getzen 4147IB.
Blair Bollinger
Bass Trombone
Blair Bollinger is the Bass Trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra where his chair is endowed by Dr. Bong and Mi-Wha Lee. He joined the Orchestra in 1986 at the invitation of Music Director Riccardo Muti and enjoys the full Orchestra schedule of more than 150 concerts each year along with many recordings and international tours, spanning the tenures of Muti, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
As a soloist, Mr. Bollinger has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, National Symphony of Taiwan and others. He has performed recitals and given master classes in Brazil, Chile, China, Greece, Holland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Poland, Taiwan and throughout the United States. As a student he won the 1986 Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition and remains the only trombonist to win this competition since it began in 1934 as well as the only bass trombone soloist ever with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His trombone is the Bollinger Model bass trombone by the S.E. Shires Company of Holliston, MA; a trombone Mr. Bollinger helped design.
His recordings include a solo disc, "Fancy Free", 2 discs with his trombone quartet "Four of a Kind", a Gabrieli disc with the Canadian Brass and a premiere recording of the Concerto by Jay Krush with the Temple University Wind Ensemble. His arrangements of music for various string and brass ensembles are published by Alphonse Leduc in Paris, Ensemble Publications in New York and Southern Music in Texas. An active teacher, Mr. Bollinger is on faculty at the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School and Temple University. In addition to teaching lessons, he coaches chamber music and conducts many classes and sectional rehearsals. He has spent recent summers performing and teaching in the National Orchestral Institute, Grand Teton Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Bravo Vail, Classical Tahoe, New York State Summer School for the Arts, Luzerne Music Center and the Bar Harbor Brass Week. He was born in Rochester, PA and is a 1986 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Charles Vernon and Glenn Dodson.
Mr. Bollinger has also been involved in backstage administration work at the Philadelphia Orchestra and Curtis Institute. At the Orchestra he has negotiated union contracts and chaired the committee that selected Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees at Curtis and has served on many faculty committees.
Rex Martin
Tuba
Jimmy Olsson
Youth ensemble/Ensemble