Trumpeter Brad Eaton was the 2015 winner of the Rising Young Star Award.
"Getting through the pandemic has been tough. I was expecting 2020 to be my busiest year yet but it ended up, like most other musicians, with almost everything cancelled. I decided to make the most of the time off and put a lot of effort into some new solo projects. I have always been interested in combining electronic and acoustic sounds, and found that the pandemic was the perfect time to start a new electronic-based solo project. I released my first single last year, and started a YouTube channel that for several months saw new music every week. It helped keep me sane, but playing music on your own isn't the same as playing with other people, or playing for an audience. Thankfully, since mid-summer this year I have been much busier gigging with other musicians."
"The pandemic has definitely made me think about what kind of career in music I'd like to have long-term. Being able to more or less choose my own schedule for a year was a very welcome change, and now that I am back on the nights-and-weekends grind, the difficult aspects of the musician's lifestyle stand out to me even more. Since I've had the chance to engage with the online side of the music business, I'm very excited to see how I can continue to move forward in that space. I think it has the potential to offer a lot of freedom to independent musicians."
Check out Brad's "Covid" projects at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1lMWHXHvwVpAC03ql-aN5g/
"Getting through the pandemic has been tough. I was expecting 2020 to be my busiest year yet but it ended up, like most other musicians, with almost everything cancelled. I decided to make the most of the time off and put a lot of effort into some new solo projects. I have always been interested in combining electronic and acoustic sounds, and found that the pandemic was the perfect time to start a new electronic-based solo project. I released my first single last year, and started a YouTube channel that for several months saw new music every week. It helped keep me sane, but playing music on your own isn't the same as playing with other people, or playing for an audience. Thankfully, since mid-summer this year I have been much busier gigging with other musicians."
"The pandemic has definitely made me think about what kind of career in music I'd like to have long-term. Being able to more or less choose my own schedule for a year was a very welcome change, and now that I am back on the nights-and-weekends grind, the difficult aspects of the musician's lifestyle stand out to me even more. Since I've had the chance to engage with the online side of the music business, I'm very excited to see how I can continue to move forward in that space. I think it has the potential to offer a lot of freedom to independent musicians."
Check out Brad's "Covid" projects at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1lMWHXHvwVpAC03ql-aN5g/
