Nathaniel Dye studied Bass Trombone Performance and Studio Composition at the University of Birmingham before teacher training at the UCL Institute of Education.  His early teaching career in the Secondary classroom was augmented by occupying the Bass Trombone chair at Fairlop Brass Band, with whom he received the rare contest accolade of ‘Best Bass Trombone’ at a SCABA contest in either Hove or Folkestone (someone reading this will know which).

 

After a two year career break spent travelling around the world with a plastic trombone, Nathaniel found his niche working with younger children and spent his early 30s leading music at an Inner London State Primary School where he found himself waving his arms around in front of a fifty strong orchestra, mostly comprising pre-grade 1 violinists.  Working with school ensembles helped Nathaniel to develop the almost limitless patience required to work with local community bands and a stint conducting the Barking Concert Band led to an opportunity to dep as a guest conductor with the Pavilion Brass Band and, as they say, the rest is history.

 

Recently, however, the future has become a bit more of an issue than the past and a diagnosis of terminal bowel cancer has quite literally cut his life in half.  Despite this setback making his availability at regular weekly rehearsals increasingly uncertain, Nathaniel remains grateful to the band for retaining his services and he continues to lead rehearsals when health allows.  At the time of writing, this is more often than not.  And just as significantly, the band continue to work with Nathaniel to fundraise at least annually with concerts in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, contributing to a running total approaching £40,000 via bowelcancerbucketlist.com.

 

And if all that wasn’t enough…he ran the 2024 London Marathon… whilst playing the trombone.