On October 8th and 9th, 2009, Pittsburg State University and trumpet professor Dr. Todd Hastings hosted the first Midwest Trumpet Festival.  Trumpet players of all levels came together for two days of master classes, recitals, lectures, exhibits, and featured performances.

Steve Leisring and the KU Trumpet Ensemble

The Midwest Trumpet Festival guest artists and faculty included:  The American Brass Quintet, David Kuehn, Dr. David Cooper (University of Wisconsin, Platteville), Dr. Iskander Akhmadullin (University of Missouri), Professor Steve Leisring (University of Kansas), and Professor Alan Hood (University of Denver).

The festivities began with a solo recital by international recording artist and former principal trumpet with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, David Kuehn, preceded by an opening fanfare played by the Pittsburg State University Trumpet Ensemble.  Accompanied on organ by Dr. Susan Marchant, the recital opened with a performance of Torelli’s Concerto for two trumpets featuring Dr. Todd Hastings and David Kuehn.  Kuehn went on to play Sharon J. Willis’ Vocalise Suite for trumpet, Elegi by Rolf Wallin, Oistein Sommerfeldt’s Five Norwegian Religious Folktunes, and Oskar Lindberg’s Gammal fabodpsalm fran Dalarna – Andante semplic.  

Al Hood and Dr. Iskander Akhmadullin both gave lectures.  Hood’s lecture, The Life of Clifford Brown, was a unique look into the short life of one of the most influential jazz trumpeter’s from this century.  As a leading authority on the life and work of Clifford Brown, Hood’s presentation was a rare look at clips of interviews with Clifford’s band mates, music teachers, neighbors, and widow, as well as photographs of the monumental musician from his family’s private collection and even a picture of him in his high school band uniform.  Hood presented piece after piece of information showing the passion and talent of Clifford Brown and how he touched the musical world in his short but legendary life.

David Kuehn

Dr. Iskander Akhmadullin’s lecture, The Russian Trumpet School, offered a glimpse into the history of trumpet in Russia.  Akhmadullin, a Russian native, spoke on pedagogical innovations such as mouthpiece buzzing that were introduced by Wilhelm Wurm and became known as part of the Russian method of teaching.  Comparable to his French contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Arban, Wurm played an influential role in establishing the foundation of the Russian Trumpet School.  Crediting East meets West: the Russian trumpet tradition from the time of Peter the Great to the October Revolution by Dr. Edward Tarr as a valuable resource, Akhmadullin discussed how Russian-trained Max Schlossberg and Vladimir Drucker carried many traditions from the Russian School into the American music scene through their teaching and influence.  This lecture gave listeners an insightful perspective into Russia’s trumpet influence and its affect on American trumpeting.

Professor Steve Leisring from the University of Kansas gave a master class on concepts in trumpet playing.  Leisring used volunteers to demonstrate the power of simply “thinking of a better sound.”  One volunteer was asked to play a note, any note, with a great sound.  Afterwards, Leisring simply said, “Ok, now play that note again, only better.”  What sounded like an unnecessary request actually resulted in a better tone on the second and third times.  Leisring stated that players simply must have a sound concept to create good sounds.  He said, “Don’t worry about your chops, don’t think about the fingering or what your body is doing to produce the note, just hear what you want to play and play it.”  Leisring also led the group warm-up session at the beginning of day two with an interesting twist to conventional warm-up routines by having everyone play along with pre-programmed keyboard accompaniments in order to establish rhythm and pitch.

The first day of the Midwest Trumpet Festival ended with a concert by the Crowder Jazz Orchestra, directed by Dr. Todd Hastings and guest soloists Al Hood and David Cooper.  The first half of the program included Slide Hampton’s Slide Derangement, Duke Ellington’s KoKo. The second half of the concert was a tribute to the big bands, including a performance of Harry James’s Ciribiribin featuring Al Hood.

For the Orchestral Trumpet Master Class, David Kuehn ran the session like an actual orchestral audition.  Participants from Pittsburg State University, University of Kansas, and Indiana University were sent backstage and one by one entered to play their selected excerpts.  Kuehn requested that the audience not applaud or speak, but take notes over each participant’s performance so that afterwards, each player could be critiqued.  The master class offered a unique perspective and experience for both the listeners and players.  When each player finished playing, Kuehn had him or her join the audience to hear the critiques. Kuehn recommended that in preparing for orchestral auditions, it is important to know what the other instruments in the orchestra are playing during that excerpt. 

American Brass Quintet

David Cooper, Professor of Trumpet and Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Platteville, and Al Hood gave the final lecture of the festival where they discussed jazz improvisation techniques. With several middle school and high school trumpeters in the audience, Cooper explained the basics of how he learned to view music as numbers instead of note names.  “When looking at what you are playing numerically, it no longer matters what key you are in, tonic is always ‘1’, dominant is always ‘5’, and so on.”  With this in mind, he played a short and simple lick and had everyone sing it back to him in numbers.  After repeating this exercise several times, Cooper suggested reading a phonebook for additional practice material by simply taking the last four digits of any number and playing them. 

Al Hood was asked the question, “What got you past simply arpeggiating changes and into using connecting material in your solos?”  Hood explained how he identifies guide tones, or tones that are closest to each other, in the changes so that he can use those as the main structure of his solo.  After finding the guide tones, he uses that as his basic inner structure and then simply adds in notes around it.  To illustrate his point, Hood improvised several bars of solo and then showed how the basic structure of what he just played could be reduced to just whole notes and half notes.  Hood and Cooper’s lecture gave several valuable tips and exercises to improve soloing skills.

The College Student Spotlight Recital offered the opportunity to hear the conference attendees perform.  Trumpet Ensembles from Pittsburg State University and the University of Kansas played, as well as students from each school in attendance.  Chris Shockley, a student from Pittsburg State University opened the recital with Fisher Tull’s Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, followed by Peixiang Li, from the University of Kansas, performing Concerto in F minor by Oskar Boehme.  Representing the University of Missouri, Kari Riley played Intrada by Otto Ketting.
 
Friday evening, the festival culminated with a performance by the American Brass Quintet.  Earlier that day, the American Brass Quintet had given a master class discussing how and why the group choose performance pieces and answering audience questions. 

Festival faculty Akhmadullin, Cooper, Leisring, Hastings, Hood

For more information on The Midwest Trumpet Festival at Pittsburg State University, please call Dr. Todd J. Hastings at (620) 235-4485 or e-mail at: thasting@pittstate.edu.

Source: Kari Riley, Graduate Student, University of Missouri, Columbia, and Todd Hastings, Professor of Trumpet, Pittsburg State University, Kansas