“He’s a phenomenon – unlike anyone else”
In 1967 I had just begun timpani and percussion lessons at Trinity College of Music with one of the most venerated players and teachers in the UK music profession. Lewis Pocock had been Principal Percussion and then Principal Timpani in Sir Thomas Beecham’s famous virtuoso Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and not only was he one of the most outstanding players of his generation, he was also a meticulous perfectionist in his expectations of others –and therefore a highly critical person, albeit in a disarmingly urbane way. I had asked his view on a young percussionist I had recently seen at a London Philharmonic Orchestra concert whose name was Tristan Fry. And not only did Mr. Pocock say that this 21-year-old musician was a phenomenon unlike anyone else – he also pointed out that he was as brilliant and virtuoso a jazz and rhythm drummer as he was an all-round percussionist and timpanist, and furthermore he was one of the very, very few percussionists he knew of who was a busy and very virtuoso solo player. Altogether he had never known anyone like him. At that time Tristan already had four years’ experience behind him as the Co-Principal Percussionist of the London Philharmonic, which he had thus joined when he was only 17 years old – an almost unheard-of situation, and from then right up to the present time his name has a unique renowned ring, which as this profile appears is being celebrated as a continuous 60-year run. Not only has that encompassed playing in symphony, opera and chamber orchestras for legendary conductors from Pierre Monteux, Leopold Stokowski, Benjamin Britten and Constantin Silvestri to Bernard Haitink, Yevgeni Svetlanov, Sir Colin Davis and Sir Neville Marriner, to name just a few: it also has included playing as a sought-after solo artist in a host of other genres: films, jazz, rock, television, and more. He is still one of the highest in-demand players – even though the musical landscape is so vastly different now from how it was when he entered the profession in 1963. He spoke with me exclusively for Liner Notes, and it was a trip down my own memory lane, as I was a very long time ago myself a percussionist (from 1969 to 1988) and not only did I play sometimes with Tristan, I also remember his very gifted father, Allan, who had joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as its Principal Percussion in 1946.