Harry Austen

Harry was surrounded by music from a young age, with his mum and grandparents playing string instruments in various orchestras and quartets. He began learning to play the trumpet in the early years of primary school.

He joined the ranks of the Great Western Youth Band (now Brunel Brass Academy) at the age of 8. Working his way through the several bands within the organisation, he won the Young Player of the Year award in 2009 and Senior Player of the Year in 2012. He took on the role of principle cornet and frequently had solo parts to play.

He joined the senior band at Brunel Brass in 2011. Shortly afterwards, the band was promoted from the 2nd Section, winning both the regional and national contests and then winning the 1st Section regional contest the following year.

Harry went to the University of Bath to study Mathematics in 2015. He barely played the cornet in the first year of his course, but soon realised how much he missed it, so not only joined the university's brass band (ending up as the principle cornet of the band in his final year in 2018-19), but also took the time to travel over to Swindon to help out Brunel at contests.

He now works as a software engineer living near Cheltenham and hopes to continue playing with the band for many years to come.