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CROCKER, Nigel
Nigel Crocker began is brass playing life performing in Salvation Army bands.
Nigel attended Perth Modern School and was a member of the Western Australian Schools’ Concert Band overseas tour from June 23 to July 1976 performing in London, Vienna, Innsbruck, Lucerne, Montreux and Zurich as part of the Fifth International Festival of youth and Music and the Tweflth International Conference of the International Society for Music Education.
The band was conducted by Ted Lewis and John Embleton and consisted of an amalgamation of largely Perth Modern School and Churchlands music scholarship students and a handful of representatives from other schools.
Margaret Bellos winners: Kim Harrison, Nigel Crocker, Marie Chantal Bertinazzo and Allan Meyer
After high school, he hung around the U.W.A. Music Department for a year, long enough to win the Margaret Bellos prize.
Nigel’s career started in funk and R&B bands in Perth in the late ’70’s.
In 1978 Nigel played with WASO on a weekly contract which rolled on for 10 months due to vacancies in the trombone section following recent departures by Simone De Haan and a few months later Bill Farnham.
WASO Proms concert at the Entertainment Centre – Nigel centre stage
ON JACK HARRISON:
“As a smart arse 19 year old I called all my new colleagues by their first names except for Mr Farnham (who’d been my teacher in high school) and Mr Harrison. He told me to call him Jack but it was strange ‘cos I’d known him as Mr Harrison since I was a whippersnapper. Jack’s easy, free playing and velvety sound was a revelation, especially as I’d only just come out out of some pretty squawky high school concert bands. I still love hearing it to this day. Indeed I loaned my copy of Jack’s Moon River CD to a young Som Howie who had just started freelancing here in Sydney. Little did I know a decade or so later he’d be sitting alongside Jack’s son-in-law Allan Meyer (another close buddy) in the WASO clarinet section. I also loved Jack’s quick quips about the occasional posturing, pompous conductors chock full of their own self importance. He had the amazing skill to project his voice to the front desk but somehow not quite reaching the ears of the maestro. A skill I have endeavoured to master throughout my own career.”
Jack Howard and Nigel Crocker NOT playing in Hunters and Collectors
Upon moving to Melbourne in ’81, Nigel found himself playing briefly with Hunters and Collectors before securing a position in the trombone section on the Channel 9 band on The Don Lane Show.
In 1983 Nigel was appointed Principal Trombone of Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Source: Symphony Australia 1987, p.127.
After 7 years with them he moved to Sydney where he has been busy freelancing ever since, across a broad spectrum of genres.
Sydney Trombone Quartet: Scott Kinmont (SSO), Nigel Crocker, Will Farmer (OAO) Matthew Walker. Australian Opera Gala concert 19932013: James Morrison, Nigel Crocker, Ed Wilson (Daly Wilson), Dave Panichi, Dan Barnett and Colin Burrows
For the past couple of decades he has also been a trombone lecturer at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Principal Trombone with Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
Brandenberg Orchestra on sackbut
Nigel took up the sackbut in the early 2000’s and has since then has appeared regularly with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Pinchgut Opera. More recently he has also been collaborating with Van Diemen’s Band on their acclaimed new CD ‘Transformations’ featuring the incredible voice of West Australian Andrew O’Connor.
The band was conducted by Ted Lewis and John Embleton and consisted of an amalgamation of largely Perth Modern School and Churchlands music scholarship students and a handful of representatives from other schools.
