The Torchbearer was commissioned as the test piece for the 2009 National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain and the FABB Open Contest respectively and pays musical tribute to Eric Ball, considered by many to be the 20th century's most influential composer of brass band music. The thematic material is derived from the first phrase of the trio from Eric Ball's Salvation Army march, Torchbearers.
Follow the Flame is a main theme from the larger work, now fully metamorphosised and mirroring in music a concept at the centre of Ball's broader philosophy, that of transformation.
