For as long as I can remember, it has been my main goal in life to wear bright red tails and a top hat on live television.

Ok, maybe it wasn't planned, but I was thrilled when it happened, anyhow. We got the call the night before (as is the case with TV) to appear at the end of Friday's The Last Leg show and play a song that Adam Hills had written. The sticking point was that only the vocal part and a bass line actually existed, so we had a few hours in the afternoon to write the rest of it. Unsurprisingly, that challenge was loads of fun and (perhaps more surprisingly) the producers having something dreadfully vague but sincerely demanding to say after every rendition we put forward was also very enjoyable.

What made this special was how it was so different to what I'm used to doing as a musician. Normally, I'll arrive at a session and there will be a part waiting for me on a music stand or an iPad, written by someone else. Maybe there will be an element of improvisation, and things will probably change a bit with some discussion, but the basic part exists before I get there. Or if I'm playing with a pop artist or band, there will often be a completed song for which we'll devise a part for me or a horn section at a rehearsal. On Friday, however, neither of those scenarios happened. There were the bare, bare bones of a song in existence just a few hours before it was performed, and the whole band had to write all of the music (except that bass line and the chord structure). Some might find that scary, but I find it so exciting – and I love that the industry expects us musicians to do that with no questions asked.

As my career has progressed and I’ve been finding my feet in it, I’ve found myself branching out, like so many musicians, into wider musical areas. Specifically, I’ve been focussing on writing, arranging and orchestrating music. With my time doing Fiddler On The Roof approaching a year now, the steady playing work (which I’ve balanced with depping on the Calendar Girls and Saturday Night Fever UK Tours) has allowed me to direct my energies into these areas much more easily.

Last week held a particularly fun project for me, when I was challenged by two amazing multi-woodwind players (Jack Reddick and Sophie Creaner) to orchestrate something for “as many woodwind instruments as possible” that they could video themselves recording. Challenge quickly accepted, I looked to the 2010 Sondheim revue Sondheim On Sondheim, which contains a white-knuckle arrangement of Something’s Coming from Bernstein’s West Side Story. Between eight parts, I managed to fit in a grand total of 25 different instruments (11 flutes, 3 saxophones, 4 clarinets and 7 recorders) and we made this video. Admire it — some of those instrument changes from Jack and Sophie are truly expert.

The trailer for my tour of Wonderland is finally out! Check out the YouTube video below. After twelve weeks, the show is still just as much fun to play – here's to the next eighteen!

Tune in to In Tune on BBC Radio 3 to hear me playing live with Alex Mendham and his Orchestra. Mendham's 11-piece orchestra authentically performs hot jazz and sweet dance band music from the Art Deco era, holding a steady position as the top such orchestra in the country.

The orchestra will be broadcasted live from the Royal Festival Hall to mark Radio 3's 70th anniversary. Listen from 5pm on Thursday 29 September 2016.

​My degree is over. My final recital, a month ago today, really was the highlight of my four years at the Guildhall School, as it was everything I had planned it to be – a showcase of who I am as a musician. It had some natural trumpet, in Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto (without a doubt the best piece of baroque trumpet music in existence); I got to play the flugelhorn and exercise my choral roots in a rendition of Gammal Fäbodpsalm från Dalarna for flugelhorn and choir (though I did give up on the arranging side of things and persuaded a dear friend to do that bit for me); and I managed to fit a substantial bit of musical theatre in too – 76 songs in total – with my new invention of the musical theatre trumpet concerto!

Eternal thanks to my composer, Sam, my arranger, Charlie, the 30 musicians who played in the recital (it was meant to be 28, but following a very-last-minute illness, I had to replace a reed tripler with three separate musicians – I prefer a round number anyway), and of course, everyone who came to watch! The rest of you, check out the video which is now up on YouTube for your unlimited enjoyment.