Thursday, May 22 – 9:30am
Ed Landreth Auditorium
Recital: “New Works for Trumpet”

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Joel Treybig, reporter

The recital of new music at this year’s conference opened up with the glorious sound of Kurt Ellenberger’s An Interactive Against Swans, an ensemble piece that was commissioned by Richard Stoelzel and Grand Valley State University for the conference. Trumpeters Eric Berlin, Joe Bowman, Jon Burgess, Larry Johansen, Herb Koerselman, Rex Richardson, Rich Stoelzel, and Bert Truax performed the ensemble piece under the direction of David Baldwin. All of these musicians did a remarkable job of playing Ellenberger’s piece, which was vibrant, exciting, and truly brilliant. The piccolo trumpet parts, performed splendidly by Richardson and Berlin, added much to this sparkling piece.

Eric Berlin, Joe Bowman, Jon Burgess, Larry Johansen, Herb Koerselman, Rex Richardson, Rich Stoelzel, and Bert Truax

Truax returned to the stage with soprano Lisa Sims and pianist Jackson Henry to perform Truax’s own composition, Grace. This piece is a perfect vehicle for a light, ethereal voice.

Lisa Sims & Bert Truax

The sacred text was delicately and appropriately sung by Sims. The lush sound of Grace seemed to fascinate the audience, and Traux’s sensitive playing never overpowered the vocal line. The double-tongued scalar passages in the trumpet part were executed with clarity and security by Truax, and balanced his already obvious lyrical ability. The writing for the voice and trumpet varied throughout the piece – sometimes paired, sometimes trading phrases, and this variety kept the listener wanting to hear what would come next.

The multimedia piece, Finish Line, by Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner brought a bold change in style to the program. Composed for trumpet, organ, and audio/visual images and sounds (made with ProTools and Csound), the work is dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father-in-law Tom Turner, and featured prerecorded atonal music and images of automobiles (both of which Turner was most fond). Ventus Musicus, which consists of Larry Johansen, trumpet, and Beverly Howard, organ, performed the surreal and haunting work as Latin text from the requiem mass as images of morphing cars moved across a screen behind the performers. The trumpet part, which was beautifully performed, was similar to a melismatic chant melody. Contrasting dissonant tone clusters and articulated lines in the organ moved beneath the trumpet line, and the mood was enhanced by the utterance of the requiem text by the loudspeakers and other sparsely-used trumpet effects such as falls, glissandos, and bent pitches.

Ventus Musicus

Rex Richardson and Rebecca Wilt took to the stage to perform two new works. Pitombeira’s exhilarating Seresta No. 4 was the first work, and balanced pointallistic, articulated passages with melodic material, and allowed Richardson to exhibit flexibility throughout the range of t

Rex Richardson

he horn. The use of cup and harmon mutes in the piece were noteworthy only due to the fact that Richardson did not allow the change in resistance that accompanies the use of mutes to effect his articulation or pitch in the least (this would have been obvious as the work rapidly went from open to muted on several occasions). He went on to introduce the next work, his own Three Etudes for Solo Trumpet. Although titled “etudes,” these seemed to be much more than studies, but rather expressive and challenging solo material suited well for performance. All three movements dealt with the manipulation of differing pitch cells, the outer movements affording Richardson a chance for agility as the line bounced through shifting intervals, accents, and articulations. The middle movement was performed on flugelhorn, and expertly dealt with many differing timbre changes including multiphonics and pitch bending to great effect. Richardson concluded his outstanding performance of the piece with a shake and a final ascending glissando, capping off what was already a strong performance.

Richard Stoelzel

As the program returned to somewhat more traditional harmonies, Richard Stoelzel joined Wilt to perform Eric Ewazen’s Prayer and Praise. The style of the work is instantly recognizable as Ewazen’s own. The piece, composed in a rounded binary form, allows the players to open with relaxed and simple phrases building into a rapid, syncopated section before returning to an ornamented version of the slower opening material. The performers played the piece with much rhythmic integrity, energy, and a beautiful line. This was a delightful performance of a lovely new piece.

Eric Berlin came to the stage with pianist Nikki Stoia to perform another new piece commissioned for the conference, Howard Buss’ Skylines. The piece successfully captures the imagery the composer intended. The first movement, “Panorama,” suggests the expansive grandeur of a vast cityscape, while the second movement, “Amid the Spires,” is intended to capture the energy of the busy streets through the evocation of energetic jazz mannerisms. Berlin performed the first movement on his Monette flumpet, which created an edgeless, mellow timbre building to a firmly rooted conclusion of stirring flourishes. The jazz style set into motion by the piano in the second movement was highly effective, and Berlin’s switch to C trumpet allowed his outstanding use of accents in the swing style to come though the thick piano texture. As the piece concluded, both artists were enthusiastically applauded for their superior execution of Buss’ work.

For the final piece on the program, the Louisville Brass performed Stan Friedman’s Spanish Dances, which was the first prize-winner of the 2003 ITG composition contest. The three movements were modeled after works by Ravel, and (according to the composer) may be performed separately. Friedman’s colorful combination of modes was perceivable to the listener, and his treatment of the ostinato in the two outer movements was remarkable as the instruments passed the dance motif throughout the group in varying combinations of instruments. The trumpets shone in the middle movement particularly, as they articulated a colorful descant over the melody presented in the other instruments. The quintet did a fantastic job of balancing the lines and performing as a true chamber ensemble throughout. Spanish Dances is a lengthy and taxing piece to perform, and Michael Tunnell, Herbert Koerselman, and the rest of the Louisville Brass are to be commended not only for their very musical presentation of the piece, but also for the sheer fortitude they exhibited in performance.

Louisville Brass

Listening to so much new material, of such fine quality, for trumpet in one sitting is almost overwhelming, but it was truly a joy to hear these new works. As I left the hall, I marveled not only at the quality of the literature and performances, but also at the beauty of each of the performers’ tone qualities. In a time when recordings have created a much more homogenous concept of what a trumpet tone should be, it was glorious to hear the wonderful and distinctive timbres unique to each of these players. It hopefully reminds us that the tonal goal we should have, particularly as soloists, is to obtain the very best from our own, individual sound.

Program

Bert Truax, trumpet
Lisa Sims, vocal
Jackson Henry, piano

Larry Johansen, trumpet
Beverly Howard, organ

Rex Richardson, trumpet
Rebecca Wilt, piano

Richard Stoelzel, trumpet
Rebecca Wilt, piano

Skylines Howard Buss
Composed for the 2003 ITG Conference

Eric Berlin, trumpet
Nikki Stoia, piano

Spanish Dances (2002) Stanley Friedman (b. 1951)

Habanera
Pavane
Bolero

First Prize, 2003 ITG Composition Contest

Louisville Brass
Michael Tunnell, trumpet
Herbert Koerselman, trumpet
Bruce Heim, horn Brett Shuster, trombone
John Jones, tuba

"Commissioned in 2002 by the University of Louisville, Spanish Dances was written especially for the Louisville Brass at the request of Dr. Michael Tunnell. The three movements (Habanera, Pavane, Bolero) are modeled after compositions by Maurice Ravel and may be performed separately or collectively as a Suite.

The pitch organization for the entire composition is bi-modal: church modes (usually Phrygian) are contrasted and combined with their complementary pentatonic scales, yielding a rich chromaticism with a shifting tonal basis.

The traditional dance structure of each movement is combined with Classical forms: Habanera + condensed Sonata-form, Pavane + ABA/Crescendo-form with canonic counterpoint, Bolero + Rondo form with contrasting themes from both previous movements."

Eric Berlin