The Piedmont Triad Affiliate Chapter of ITG celebrated its inaugural event, the UNCSA/ITG Trumpet Festival, with a Winston-Salem favorite: Krispie Kreme donuts.  Several exhibits provided eye candy for visitors:  Separk Music, a favorite Triad area music store located in downtown Winston-Salem, whose support of local arts events is known throughout community, provided visitors and students the chance to peruse an array of music, instruments, accessories, and even some t-shirts with a logo that says it all: “here comes treble!”

Doug Ronning made the trek from Nashville to share the music of his publishing company, Ronning Music, which not only distributes the music of publishers from around the world, but also publishes brass ensemble and trumpet ensemble music. 

The Moravian Music Foundation is the custodian of one of the largest private music collections in the country, including the only complete set of Civil War band books.  The Moravian community’s brass tradition runs deep, and visitors were treated to an intriguing exhibit of what this non-profit has to offer.

This event was hosted by Judith Saxton, trumpet artist/faculty and Brass Coordinator at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.  The ITG contributed to support the event, and UNCSA provided their facilities for the festival. All in all, the festival had a little something for everyone.  Keep an eye out for more events to come!

(Talya Lieberman--graduate student, UNCSA )

Baroque trumpet clinic with Barry Bauguess

Renowned Baroque trumpet artist Barry Bauguess gave a Baroque trumpet clinic and demonstration.  He discussed the Baroque trumpet, performed, and gave attendees a brief history of the trumpet.

Bauguess began by telling the audience that he attended UNCSA when Ray Mase was teaching at the school. He then started his demonstration by briefly explaining the specific trumpets he brought with him. Bauguess started with an 1860 orchestral F trumpet; the instruments for which Mahler and his peers would have written. Next he played the Haydn Trumpet Concerto on a replica of a keyed trumpet, and he also demonstrated how each crook had an entirely different set of fingerings. He ended the masterclass by playing the Krakow Trumpet Signal on a Baroque trumpet and inviting anyone who wanted to come up and play any of the historical trumpets.

(Brian Garland--undergraduate student, UNCSA )

Jazz clinic with Dr. Scott Belck

Improvisation and reading chord changes can be a challenge for novices, but Dr. Scott Belck comes gave jazz-beginners a system to approach the challenges. His principles of improvisation gave attendees a solid starting platform from which to explore this idiom.

According to Belck, this first and most important principle to improvising is rhythm.  At the beginning of the class, several people tried and struggled with ending a lick on the downbeat of the next chord.  Students quickly understood that improvisation takes impeccable rhythm to keep up with the chord changes.

The next most important point is listening.  Belck made clear that if musicians cannot figure out a piece without the aid of reading music, they do not know it.

In the end of the session, Belck came back to the theory, stating that the one thing every good jazz musician knows is that he or she needs to understand what is occurring in the music to perform well.  By knowing the harmonic progressions and what they mean, someone can broaden their musical canvas by opening their ears up to new possibilities previously unknown.  Under Belck’s careful tutelage, attendees found helpful and constructive ways to approach jazz. 

(Jules Meyer--high school student, UNCSA)

Orchestral/Solo Clinic with Judith Saxton, James Ackley, Jean-Christophe Dobrzelewski

The orchestral/solo clinic took the form of a roundtable between the three artists, Judith Saxton, James Ackley, and Jean-Christophe (J.C.) Dobrzelewski, who focused on many different aspects of orchestral and solo playing.  They kicked off the session by playing a Tchaikovsky fanfare from Ceremonial Fanfares published by Crown Music Press in German, French and American orchestral style, with the ensuing discussion focusing on the importance of listening and style differentiation.

One idea all three clinicians focused on was the importance of being as flexible a musician as possible.  For the modern trumpeter, it is essential to be comfortable playing in all styles and in all musical situations: orchestral, solo, chamber, and jazz.  Beyond that, Dobrzelewski called the natural trumpet the “wave of the future” and emphasized the importance of being able to perform on this instrument, as natural trumpet performance is already required in some European orchestral auditions.  Saxton discussed the need to make oneself a commodity that people want to buy.  Ackley commented on the value of real world experience, and related some of his own experiences playing in several Latin American orchestras, then going across the street after concerts and playing in salsa clubs.

When the discussion turned to sound concept, Saxton mentioned the importance of listening to role models, saying, “You’re a product of everything you’ve ever heard.”  Each player should make clear decisions on how he or she wants to sound.  Dobrzelewski corroborated this and added that it was also important to listen to vocalists and string players in addition to trumpet players.  James Ackley emphasized listening as essential to learning to play in different styles.

The final topic discussed was orchestral auditions.  Dobrzelewski recommended listening to recordings of the orchestra for which one is auditioning in order to grasp that orchestra’s individual sound and style.  Ackley mentioned five things all winners of auditions will have: a beautiful sound, a musical approach, the ability to play in time, the ability to play in tune, and a consistent sound from excerpt to excerpt.

Overall, this clinic offered guidance and three unique perspectives on forging a successful career in music.

(Greg Lloyd--graduate student, UNCSA)

Come Back Players with Bryan Appleby-Wineberg

Although the session was targeted towards come back players, Dr. Appleby-Wineberg presented concepts useful to any player, regardless of age or experience. In his clinic, Dr. Appleby-Wineberg highlighted the concept of thinking of playing the trumpet like singing; i.e. everything is up, chest is high; the shoulders are never down. He told attendees to imagine Pavarotti when singing and that singing is the body language trumpeters want to emulate.  He warned that tightening the stomach muscles close the throat.

Another point was to be lazy: do not push through the resistance but work with it.  Appleby-Wineberg said not to be a hard working trumpet player because then the body will work against itself. He emphasized that the more the lips relax, the better the sound becomes because looser lips give more vibration, and vibration is key.  Appleby-Wineberg illustrated by buzzing his lips and touching his top lip with his finger and all buzzing sound stopped. He repeated this process and this time touched his bottom lip and although the pitch of the buzz changed, the buzzing continued. The point here is that it is bottom lip is the anchor, but the top lip cannot be.

Buzzing the mouthpiece without the trumpet attached is also a key concept. Appleby-Wineberg suggested chromatic arpeggios for one octave beginning on concert Bb.  He also suggested buzzing the mouthpiece and adding the trumpet while continuing to buzz.   Players should not preset the embouchure prior to placing the mouthpiece on the lips and should do nothing with their lips until inhalation.

The class concluded with everyone buzzing their mouthpiece and playing in whole tones from low C up a 5th and back so that attendees could all have an opportunity to try first hand a bit about what they had learned. It was a very informative session.

(Paul K. Rigsbee, ITG Member)

Composer’s Roundtable with Tromba Mundi, Lawrence Dillon and David McHugh

One portion of the UNCSA ITG Trumpet Festival was a composer’s roundtable that showed young composers how to write for the trumpet.  To open the session, Tromba Mundi played a contemporary piece to show off the range, style, and versatility of the instrument. This was followed by a seminar with Tromba Mundi offering live demonstrations of the concepts discussed with two award-winning and active composers from UNCSA:  Larry Dillon from the music school and David McHugh from the filmmaking school.  McHugh shared many anecdotes from writing for the film industry in both NYC and Hollywood and how the interaction and input of the studio musicians was invaluable as he led his recording sessions.  Dillon stressed to the class that asking questions is still the most important thing to consider before writing is started.  Collaborating with the work’s performers, a necessary step in composing in an academic setting, ensures that the piece will work.  As two seasoned professionals, they also made clear that writing for trumpet should be relatively idiomatic for the instrument.  Basic techniques covered included picking a moderately consistent range and knowing when to put rests in between long passages of playing.  The panelists also noted that trumpets can play notes that are not part of the melody. These other types of notes can be the usual quarters, eighths and sixteenths, or they can be part of an extended technique for the instrument. Lip bending, half-valving, flutter tonguing, multiphonics, and off stage playing were all extended techniques mentioned and demonstrated.  The session ended with closing comments that stressed a composer’s willingness to be open to any suggestions and asked all of the composers to consider the playability of their compositions.

(Alex Rodiek, graduate student, UNCSA)

Tromba Mundi with Barry Bauguess (from l->r, Dobrzelewski, Appleby-Wineberg, Ackley, Saxton, Bauguess, Belck

Tromba Mundi Concert

The culmination of the festival featured the new trumpet ensemble Tromba Mundi in concert with James Ackley, Bryan Appleby-Wineberg, Scott Belck, J.C. Dobrzelewski and Judith Saxton.  They were joined by special guest Barry Bauguess on Baroque and later C trumpet, area trumpeters Kenneth Wilmot and Karl Kassner and UNCSA faculty/artist John Beck on timpani. The performance kicked off with the fanfare Intrada Drammatica.Concerto for 7 trumpets and timpani, by Johann Ernst Altenburg.  The work for seven trumpets and timpani combined the natural trumpet, performed on the solo voice, with the present-day piccolo and C trumpets on the ensemble parts.  The other work featuring this unique set-up was Gordon Mathie’s arrangement of Torelli’s Concerto in D.  James Stephenson’s piece Bold, Blue and Bright also utilized the same forces.  Each movement featured a solo that performed by a different member of Tromba Mundi.

One piece featured in the concert was written by Judith Saxton entitled Tribute to Maleah.  Maleah was a former student of Saxton’s who died tragically in a car accident.   The rest of the concert featured tunes from Tromba Mundi’s new CD on the MSR Classics Label and concluded with an arrangement by and featuring Scott Belck of “The Summer Knows” from the Summer of ’42 by Michel Legrand.

“Sonic Tonic” was the portion of the concert where all the trumpet players that attended the festival had the opportunity to perform in one massive trumpet ensemble led by Judth Saxton. The group had rehearsed in two short sessions during the day’s events.  The songs that were performed were Canterbury Flourish, Gordon Jacob’s fanfare, and Shenandoah, arranged by James Olcott.

(Alexander Johnson, high school student, UNCSA )