Neville Young, reporter

Brian Chin put together an interesting program of new music for this morning's Boyd Recital Hall audience. As several of the players pointed out, there are many good reasons to take an intelligent interest in this repertoire; people find new material not only to play themselves, but to share with students. New music has been a strong point at ITG this year and it is heartening that there are so many new commissions coming out to further our art.

Grant Peters, accompanied by Leslie Spotz, began with Robert Frank's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, originally written in 1984 but revised into this new edition just this year. Peters recommended the work as “challenging, yet accessible for college-level students” and proceeded to give us a convincing rendition. Written with neo-classical forms in mind and having “more than a touch of Hindemith” about it, the sonata is a pleasing work featuring some beautiful, broad melodies, and was done full justice by Peters' impeccable performance. The second movement has a simple, charming melody based on a Russian folk tune, Bears are Sleeping, which benefited greatly from the soloist's lovely warm sound.

Next was Brent Michael Davids' Trumpeting the Stone, performed by Christopher Moore and pianist Seth Beckman. In his introduction Moore explained about his Native American heritage, which as a member of the Oneida tribe he shares with the composer, a Mohican, and which led to this work being explicitly based on Native American themes and ideas, even down to the title which refers to the Oneida's other name: People of the Upright Stone. Surprises in the work included a march and a hymn tune, both evidence of the Europeanization of the culture being absorbed and reflected back. There were some sensitive, fluting moments on flugelhorn and bold, vital passages on trumpet: Moore also played a traditional water-drum and a horn rattle which added drama, as well as interesting texture, to his riveting performance of this interesting and unusual piece.

Concert organizer Brian Chin now changed role to become the trumpet soloist in a fine performance of Robert Ketchley's Concerto for Trumpet in which he was accompanied by Rebecca Wilt. This concerto pretty much throws the book at the soloist but Chin rose to the challenge and beyond, pleasing the audience with some very sensitive muted playing, a fabulous slow movement with soaring high range work, always controlled and beautiful, and a blazing Tarantella finale which built in rhythmic complexity and excitement as it approached its blazing end. I think this one probably doesn't fit into the “works to collect for your students” category - not unless you have some pretty unusual students - but I'd very much like to hear Chin's virtuosity applied to it again one day.

David Finko's Concerto for Trumpet, on the other hand, was written explicitly to be accessible for advanced student players as well as professionals. It received its world premiere in October 2004, performed then as now by Barbara Sauer Prugh who commissioned the work. Accompanied by Michael Sheadel, Prugh launched into a huge, bold opening which was then quickly contrasted with busier and quieter passages. Finko in his previous career designed nuclear submarines so it is perhaps not surprising that the work is well constructed and has great attention paid to its joins - it really is a pleasure to hear, especially performed with such style and panache. In the second movement Prugh had asked Finko for “something I can sing on” and he has delivered this with great skill, showing off Prugh's fine tone and her effortless, precise high playing.

The penultimate piece in this very full concert was Concerto no 1 para Trompete e Banda Sinfonia by Edmundo Villani Cortes, here performed by Anor Luciano accompanied by Leslie Spotz. Because of time limitations the third movement was omitted and we heard only the second, then first movements. The second movement is a wonderful vehicle for Luciano's very warm, lyrical playing, starting simple but growing in complexity to end in an ecstatic display and inhabiting a beautiful, perhaps rather Debussian harmonic world. The first movement, sensibly moved to the end to make more sense of the shape of the piece, began with a fast, bright tune, cheerfully syncopated, and progressed, via some almost operatic moments of declamatory drama and other passages of soft, reflective melody, to a couple of impressive cadenzas and a solid, well-structured ending.

As Michael Anderson came onstage to perform the last work in the concert he asked the audience, “anybody tired of solo trumpet music yet?” If they were, this last piece was the ideal antidote, being quite different from anything we'd yet heard. Edward Knight's Sonata through Salt-Rimmed Glasses tells a story of romantic hopes raised and dashed in a cantina as an evening progresses. Anderson, and pianist Rebecca Wilt, gave a remarkable performance of this work, moving seamlessly between impressive all-out trumpet sonata work and something verging dangerously close to musical comedy as the protagonists worked out their tensions across a seemingly smoldering piano. This work is really a very intense and complex piece and tests the trumpet player to the limit. With the helpful program notes it was possible to follow the story as it unfolded and get the full benefit of the drama. The third movement in particular is wonderful from this point of view, starting with a beautiful and lyrical muted tune played passionately and with supreme control by Anderson - but it all gets a bit unstructured as the night goes on and the melody comes back in a variety of guises, some distorted, others maudlin or angry, moving toward a slow tango which pretty much explodes with passion. This is a witty and novel piece which received an excellent premiere performance today.

The audience at the New Music Solo Recital heard a wide-ranging program of interesting new music and left with some great new ideas and sounds to think about. Thanks are due to those pioneering trumpet players who toil bravely out there at the event horizon of the new; to the indefatigable pianists who were just so amazing at this event and so many others, and to Brian Chin for putting together this excellent concert.