Ivano Ascari in recital at TCU

Ivano Ascari, Professor of Trumpet at Trento (Northern Italy) State Conservatory of Music, spent October 9th – 16th as a guest artist at Texas Christian University. His visit was made possible from support of TCU School of Music and an ITG Chapter Grant. Ascari has performed as principal of Bolzano Symphony Orchestra and a member of Verona Brass Ensemble. Other ensembles he has performed with include Scala Theater Milano Orchestra, Budapest Symphony, Bergamo Stabile Orchestra and the Bologna Opera Theater. Ascari began a personnel project almost ten years ago to try to expand the chamber music literature for trumpet by requesting composers to write for him and then recording their efforts. With the completion of his sixth recording and a seventh on the way, and over ninety compositions written for him, it is obvious he has had great success in expanding the chamber music literature for trumpet. Ascari performed a recital and worked with TCU students though out the week. The program in his recital was repertory he plans to record in his next CD. Composers represented included Stefano Melloni, Dimitri Nicolau, Robert Garwell, Jesus Villa-Rojo, Corrado Saglietti, Fabrizio Festa, George Zerros, and Joseph Pherson. Compositions included works for unaccompanied trumpet, trumpet and piano, trumpet and electronics and trumpet and percussion.

Ascari also visited Baylor University, hosted by Wiff Rudd. He coached the Baylor Graduate Brass Quintet and gave a master class to the brass students. In his master class, he demonstrated some of the new compositions that had been written for him, talked about warm-up routines that included transposing short musical examples rather than static exercises, and worked with several Baylor trumpet students.

Wiff Rudd, Ascari, and graduate quintet at Baylor

Source: Dr. Jon Burgess, Texas Christian University, Associate Professor of Trumpet