Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

A fanfare for music’s next generation

Also: Buybacks are becoming more popular with British companies — but at what cost?

issue 06 April 2019

The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards 2019, sponsored by Julius Baer,  are open for entries at www.spectator.co.uk/disruptor. We’re looking for innovators from every part of the UK who are disrupting their marketplace in terms of price, choice and accessibility and have the potential to scale up, nationally and internationally.

Meanwhile, a shining example of all those attributes: in the third of our series of inspirational stories about UK entrepreneurs, Martin Vander Weyer talks to Steven Greenall, founder of Warwick Music Group — the plastic instrument maker that was Midlands regional finalist in The Spectator’s 2018 Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards.

Steven Greenall was nine when his music teacher brought a shiny tubular object into the classroom and asked ‘Does anyone want to play this?’ Steven immediately raised his hand. ‘The trombone chooses you,’ he tells me: it chose him that day and has played a huge part in his life ever since.

He grew up to play in and conduct big bands and student orchestras — and marry a clarinettist — but never saw himself becoming a full-time musician.

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