Early Life and Education
Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton, England, the youngest of five children from a prosperous Northampton family of shoemakers. As a rebellious teenager, he was attracted to the creative freedom of jazz. After seeing Louis Armstrong play in Bournemouth, he took up the trumpet at the age of 12 and 5 years later won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music (RCM).
At the RCM he studied composition with Gordon Jacob and the trumpet with Ernest Hall. In 1941 he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) as second trumpet and became principal trumpet in 1943.
In 1941 he registered as a conscientious objector with a condition of joining the National Fire Service, but in the event he was allowed to continue in the LPO. In 1944, after his brother in the Royal Air Force had been killed, he volunteered for military service. When the army put him in a military band he shot himself in the foot to get back to civilian life. After a season as principal trumpet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra he returned to the London Philharmonic in 1946 where he remained until 1948 when he left to become a full-time composer.
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