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…