Biography of Gareth Roberts

Gareth is a jazz trombonist who has been playing in and around the South Wales area for many years now. He plays in a wide variety of different Welsh bands including the Welsh Jazz Composers Orchestra and his own quintet, for which he writes all the material himself.

The Gareth Roberts quintet have been playing together for many years and have built up a large following in and around Cardiff with their own, unique, exciting brand of Jazz. All of the quintet are acclaimed bandleaders in their own right but they recently got together under the leadership of Gareth to record their long-awaited debut album “The Attack of the Killer Penguins” which was launched on the 1st of June 2006.

Brought up near Aberystwyth in Mid-Wales, most of Gareth´s early musical experiences came playing Euphonium in Brass Bands. He later switched to playing trombone after discovering jazz and realising that Jazz Euphonium would never be the sound of the future.

After leaving school Gareth went to Nottingham University to study Civil Engineering and after spending 3 years learning all there was to know about the properties of concrete and different welding methods he returned to Aberystwyth to take a PGCE course in Maths. Gareth moved to Cardiff in 1998 and worked full time as a maths teacher for 5 years until a lack of sleep caused by too many late night gigs forced him to leave and decide to take a Post-Graduate diploma in Jazz at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Whilst at College in Cardiff Gareth studied with (amongst others) Paula Gardiner and Keith Tippett and had regular trombone lessons from Mark Bassey at Trinity College, London.

Gareth is much in demand as trombone player and as well as playing with many different bands he also receives regular bookings for television and radio work and he recently performed on an award winning play broadcast on radio 3.

At present, as well as working professionally as a trombone player Gareth is heavily involved with music education. He teaches music part-time in a Welsh language comprehensive school in Cardiff, conducts two school jazz bands (for whom he writes most of the music) and is employed by many different organisations to run music workshops for pupils of all ages.