Sitting here at my gate — waiting for my flight to board — I have been afforded the opportunity (thanks to an American Airlines flight delay) to reflect a bit on some recent and upcoming performances.

I am excited to be headed to St. Louis to play principal trumpet with the St. Louis Symphony this week. And with Wagner’s “Parsifal” and “Harmonium” by John Adams on the docket, there is certainly plenty of playing to be done. If you don’t know Harmonium, be sure to check it out. It’s a wonderful piece.

The airport has been a familiar place for me lately, given that I just returned a couple of days ago from giving a recital and master class at the Trumpet Festival of the Southeast. Brandon Craswell, at the University of Georgia, did a wonderful job hosting this festival, and it was a success in every way. As for me, I really enjoyed playing the recital, which featured a program of pieces that I had never performed before. Given the feedback I received, the program seemed to be a success, and I’m looking forward to repeating it in the near future. One piece I don’t know if I’ll get to repeat soon, though, is the Yves Chardon Sonata for Trumpet in D and Violoncello. I was very lucky that my dear friend (and Atlanta Symphony cellist) Jen Humphreys had the night off and was willing to make the trek out to Athens, Georgia to play at a trumpet festival (of all things)! I had a fantastic time playing this piece and the audience seemed to enjoy it a great deal. If you get the chance to program it, I highly recommend it.

For now, though, I think it is time that this delay comes to an end. I have enjoyed writing, but I think it is relatively important that I actually make it to St. Louis for rehearsal tomorrow. Fingers crossed…

As I sit here waiting for the radio feature to play on KALW, (in case you haven’t heard, there will be an hour long interview/special on me and my music on KALW San Francisco public radio tonight at 8pm PDT. To hear it, visit this page and select “Listen Live”) I am struck by what an eventful day it has been. I coached the brass section out at the New World Symphony for the first time this year, received 4 perusal scores in the mail for some amazing (yet devastatingly hard) modern trumpet concertos, and then have the radio interview coming later tonight. Throw in a few good hours of practice and you have a pretty damn good day!

The New World coaching was an intense 2 hour immersion into audition preparation and philosophy. Those guys hung in there and asked some fantastic questions over the course of the long lecture/discussion. Hopefully it helped them de-mystify the audition process somewhat. The afternoon was followed with a couple of great lessons with more excellent questions. All in all, my time on the beach was draining, but very rewarding.

And when I got home, I had the four perusal scores waiting invitingly on the front porch (I can’t help but laugh at the thought of someone stealing the package, ripping it open, and looking with wonder and disgust at what they had collected as “loot”). The pieces are:

• Turnage – From the Wreckage
• Gruber – Aerial
• Gruber – Busking
• MacMillan – Epiclesis

These are intense pieces and even just looking at the score is daunting. Like always, though, a little time to reflect and process can make even the most complex and difficult things possible. It’s a remarkable process, really. The piece by Gruber titled Busking is a new and fascinating piece. It is written for solo trumpet, banjo, accordion and strings! I haven’t really had a chance to dig into this one yet, but my first impression is a good one. Look for more thoughts about this piece in the future. There’s lots more to share (and posts will be more regular if it kills me), but for now I will add writing for my blog to the list of rewarding activities today. No complaints. Now, hopefully I didn’t make a fool of myself in this interview…

If I were to choose any trumpet concerto to sit and listen to, just for the sake of enjoyment, I believe I would choose Desolation Wilderness, the piece that has been occupying real estate on my music stand for quite some time now. The reason I would sit and listen to it isn’t because of that, however. There are plenty of concertos that I have spent a ton of time learning that will never see the light of day on a playlist of mine. This concerto by Joby Talbot offers us trumpet players something that is sorely lacking from our repertoire: a beautiful concerto that is exciting, challenging, and flashy, while giving the trumpet player that rare chance to really sing a truly heartfelt line. Simply put, it is finely crafted and dynamic music, with a soul.

I suppose it is a good sign that I feel this way as I work to get the piece ready for it’s U.S. Premier. This is one concerto that should definitely become a staple of our repertoire. I know it will of mine.

Oh yeah, and one more thing, unlike many trumpet concertos, it doesn’t have a crappy 3rd movement. Rejoice!

Joby Talbot

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Each of the past two summers I have been playing the two week new music immersion that is the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. The festival is located in Santa Cruz, California, and it offers a unique musical opportunity to simultaneously expose and be exposed to some of the best new music being written today. Every year the festival brings in the leading composers of our time and they collaborate with music director Marin Alsop and the orchestra to create concerts that focus solely on new music; there is no old musical warhorse being trotted around these grounds. If you want to hear Tchaik 5, or Beethoven 5, or Pictures at an Exhibition, you’ll have to find a different festival.

This year, I am especially excited about the festival because I am performing the U.S. Premier of Desolation Wilderness, a trumpet concerto written by the British composer, Joby Talbot. The concerto was written in 2006 for Alison Balsom and it features driving minimalist-style rhythms, soaring melodic lines, and lightning fast technical passages reminiscent of the great violin concertos; it is a welcome addition to the trumpet repertoire to be sure. If you don’t know Joby’s music, you should definitely check it out. He has done some extraordinary work. You can learn more about him by visiting www.jobytalbot.com.

Joby’s music is a perfect example of new music that bucks the trend of being difficult to listen to and academic. Indeed, my experiences the past couple of summers at the Cabrillo Festival have introduced me to a wide range of composers who write music that is strikingly beautiful and quite easy to listen to, while maintaining important aspects like originality, finely crafted orchestration, and a well organized formal structure. This new direction for modern music is exciting and necessary for the survival of classical music as an art form. Over the last 50-100 years the vast majority of composers have ignored their audiences and written music that most of the population would not choose to listen to. Artistically speaking, I have no problem with that. I truly believe a composer should write the music he/she most believes in, regardless of what people think. The problem comes when we want to be able to make a living writing or performing this type of music. For that, we need to be able to make money, and to make money we need the audience to care about our work; it’s that simple. If classical music is going to continue into the future as a living, thriving art form — and not as just an old museum relic — it will need to have new music that audiences care about, that people are excited to hear. New music is the music of our age; it needs to be the main attraction, and the main attraction has to be good!

For two short weeks in Santa Cruz that is exactly what is on offer, and I am happy to be a part of it. To see what is going on at the festival this year simply visit: www.cabrillomusic.org

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Today I had a student who was feeling rather dramatic about the opening of Bernstein’s Rondo for Lifey. I have found this to be a common problem, so I have devised a cure. If you should ever find yourself in this situation, remember this:

Yes, that would be Lifey! Of course, this is not the actual Lifey, but it is a sky terrier nonetheless. Look at the picture again. I think it is safe to say that this is not the subject of a Mahler Symphony or a Wagner Opera. Something to keep in mind the next time you perform this wonderfully charming little piece.