Beijing – Day 5
This afternoon I gave a four-hour master class to the CCOM middle school trumpet students. There were about 15 students around the age of 14-18.
First we went through some warm-up concepts together as a class. Then I talked about putting music into different categories in order to help you focus on intent and be more efficient in your practice. The categories I discussed were solo…
Beijing – Day 4
After a morning of practicing, our host, Fan Lei treated us all to another amazing lunch. I had turtle, venison, goose, manta ray and an amazing ginseng soup! He has assigned three of his students to chaperone the four guests around throughout the week and these students have already become great friends. At least one has been with all of us at all times. None of the Americans that are here…
Beijing – Day 3
Today was the day of my solo recital. I had a dress rehearsal followed by lunch at a local hotspot.
After that some much needed downtime till the concert. The first portion of the program was by tuba great, Marty Erickson. He plays with amazing control and confidence. It also seems that he never actually gets tired!
My program was:
“Tromba Sola” Ketil Hvoslef. I reviewed this…
Beijing – Day 2
The Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing has about 1000 university-age university music students and another 1000 high school-age students. They call them middle school students. There are two large buildings that house the students, rehearsal rooms, concert halls (2), dining facilities and practice rooms. One of the buildings is 15 floors and the top five floors are all practice rooms; 75…
Beijing – Day 1
I have been invited to play some recitals and give some master classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. This is part of the 2nd International Wind & Percussion Music Festival. This is a huge thrill and honor for me so I thought I would keep a web log of my adventure here on AllThingsTrumpet.
I arrived yesterday evening around 5pm China-time after about 16 hours of…
Wayne Bergeron clinic
I just recently attended a conference where the trumpet great, Wayne Bergeron gave a presentation. I feel pretty safe in saying that Wayne is perhaps THE most in demand lead trumpet player alive; or at least in the top-5 among all commercial trumpet players. Just have a look at his film credits on his website and you will realize that you have probably actually been listening to him for years…
Sampson – Notes from Faraway Places (suite 1)
Title
Notes from Faraway Places Suite 1 (I. Krems, Austria - II. Richmond, Virginia – III. Delaware Water Gap, Penn.) For Unaccompanied Trumpet By David Sampson
Biographical Info
David Sampson is a trumpet player, teacher and composer living in New Jersey. He has made considerable contributions to 20th and 21st Century trumpet literature by composing more than fifteen works featuring the…
Mouthpiece Experiment
This is super-geeky, but whatever. This summer I'm going to only play one mouthpiece per horn!
Today starts my summer playing schedule and for the next month and a half, it's going to be a very busy one. The last few months I have been slowly driving myself crazy switching mouthpieces. I was juggling about six and (obviously) not completely thrilled with any of them. I think the reason I…
Aesthetics of Tone
I recently came across this article written by Steven Emery. It's absolutely the best depiction of tone description I've come across. Dizzy used to say, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Well, describing sound and why we like it or don't is even more complex. Steve does a fantastic job. I hope you enjoy. Thanks, Steve for allowing me to re-post your work here.
One…
Great time at ITG
I'm back from another fantastic ITG Conference. This time it was Minneapolis, May 23-28. I would like to thank everyone that stopped by the Composers' Collective booth and said Hi or bought something. It seemed we hardly ever had any down time. I also would like to thank my colleagues at the booth, David Canfield, Jim Gauthier, Jim Stephenson and our booth mom, Lauren Bernofsky.
I went up…