"A Summer Remembrance": Trumpet Solo Heard 'Round The World

Perhaps I should have entitled this blog, "Free Download," but I decided to take the high road, instead. Read on!

Many people think of the trumpet as a loud instrument, useful mainly for sounding military bugle calls, leading big band "shout" choruses, and driving great orchestral climaxes. This is true, of course, as far as it goes.

Trumpets and trumpet-like objects have surely been used to project signals over great distances since before recorded history. Old European courts could measure their grandeur by the size of their trumpet corps. And trumpets usually lead the way at big moments in the repertoire of both orchestral and jazz ensembles. But the trumpet is capable of great delicacy, subtlety, and lyricism, as well, and it was this potential that brought forth my work, A Summer Remembrance.

Each summer – like swallows to Capistrano, California (or buzzards to Hinkley, Ohio – the most fitting analogy depends upon your point of view) – trumpeters converge on some city in a ritual known in the business as an "ITG Conference." "ITG" stand for International Trumpet Guild. It's a professional organization with high goals and many worthy achievements. Most of its members live and work in the US, east of the Rockies and west of the Atlantic, so these conferences are rarely held in distant lands, and even more rarely here on the West Coast.

In 1989, however, the ITG held its conference in Santa Barbara, California. Robert Karon was the host. A regular feature of these conferences is the closing program, The Festival of Trumpets, and somewhat predictably, the Festival of Trumpets itself usually ends with a piece that uses many trumpeters all at once. The more, the merrier. But in 1989, Bob Karon had a different idea.

He called me one day – in that lost era before email and text messages, when land-line telephones still rang – to ask if I'd write a piece to conclude the Santa Barbara Festival of Trumpets, and would I consider having the piece finish quietly in a peaceful solo, instead of in the usual quasi-atomic incident? (My words, not his...) This interested me immediately, and when he described the concert venue, I was hooked.

Storke Tower at University of California, Santa Barbara

The concert would be held in a sunken area near the foot of UCSB's Storke Tower, which is a campanile in the middle of campus, measuring 175 feet tall. That's something like eleven stories high, with a carillon up top. I like writing music for specific venues, taking musical advantage of unique spaces, and this was perfect. A Summer Remembrance was born.

In five movements, A Summer Remembrance (for three or four trumpets, minimum) mixes traditional and avant-garde compositional techniques. The second and fourth movements are straight-ahead fanfare pieces; they were played by six trumpeters positioned up in the top of Storke Tower. The first and third movements employ spatial notation. In addition, the first movement allows for performance by one or more players, and there is no limit to the number of players that may be used in the third movement – which also employs aleatory through performer choice. The fifth movement is a simple, tonal, lyrical solo that employs just a touch of jazz flavor here and there. It is this Solo from A Summer Remembrance that I now offer as a free download at my website.

At UCSB in 1989, all of my performers were positioned out of view of the audience. Four players played the first movement. Sixteen were used on the third movement. Fred Sautter, then Principal Trumpet of the Oregon Symphony, performed the Solo. The players of the first and third movements were placed behind trees and hedges, above and encircling the area in which the audience sat. The fanfare players were in the top of Storke Tower. Fred Sautter and I worked for an hour one day, having him go behind various buildings and pointing this way and that, until we achieved just the right "distant" sound. He was great to work with, and his performance was flawless.

As an aside, I must mention that Fred had been a guest artist at the very first Claude Gordon Summer Brass Workshop in 1978, where he played a recital of music for piccolo trumpet and harpsichord. That was the year that I decided to become a professional musician, so working with him again a decade later was a great pleasure.

But, you ask, What's this business about "Around the World"?

Well, after all these years, I must reveal a little history. While the official premiere of A Summer Remembrance was indeed at the 1989 ITG conference in Santa Barbara, the work received a pre-premiere quasi-performance just a few days before at the Humboldt State University Brass Chamber Music Workshop, where an hour each week is devoted to music for "like ensembles," including an hour of music for trumpet ensemble. So, as a long time staff member there, I rehearsed and conducted an informal performance of A Summer Remembrance using 33 players.

One of these was Tom Hyde, a high school teacher of mathematics and astronomy, whom I selected to perform the Solo. Tom is a well-traveled type, and one day afterward he sent me a postcard from Denmark or somewhere telling me how he was on a round-the-world solo trip and how -- having naturally taken along his pocket trumpet (who wouldn't?) -- he had played my Solo from A Summer Remembrance along the way. In Kathmandu in Nepal, there had been some civic trouble, and the city was locked down for some days. So he went on the roof of his hotel and played the Solo as a sort of prayer for peace. Elsewhere, he played the Solo in a cave for the local bat population. In Denmark, he played it on a street corner for passersby. And so on. It was my first international hit!

I've played the Solo many times, and others have played it, too. Most recently, Dr. Joan Paddock -- Professor of Music at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon -- wrote to tell me she played the Solo in concerts in Grecia and Puerto Limon in Costa Rica. Joan is a dear friend and also a colleague on the staff at the Humboldt State University Brass Chamber Music Workshop. She conducts the Linfield College Band and concertizes widely.

So, where is the Free Download? At the Unaccompanied Trumpet page in the Online Store at my Website. I invite you to download it there and perform it as often as you wish. Perhaps folks will perform it around the world and post some videos to YouTube. I'd love that! I must say that, if the last note isn't comfortable for you to play (it's a high D, pianissimo), take it down an octave or two. That's OK. Just play with beauty and love in your heart and sound. There's also a Paypal button nearby, for anyone that wishes to make a $5 donation. You need not do this, and there is no way for me to know who has downloaded the piece. There's also no limit to the number of $5 donations one can make, if one is so inclined!

Either way, Dr. Ray is happy, happy, happy.

(A Summer Remembrance is dedicated to the great Los Angeles studio trumpeter, Mannie Klein, whom I was privileged to know. He'll be the subject of an upcoming blog. The full composition may be purchased HERE.)

What's Next?: "The Morini Strad" Closes at Burbank's Colony Theatre

Willy Holtzman's latest theatrical success, "The Morini Strad" (2011), closed last weekend after an extended run at Burbank's storied Colony Theatre. Whether the Colony Theatre itself will close is now the subject of its own drama. Let us hope it is not a tragedy. The cost of continued success threatens to lower the curtain on this valuable organization whose theatrical heart is indeed true. To learn more about the company and how you can support it, visit their Website.

In restating the true story of a Stradivarius violin's mysterious disappearance at the end of it's owner's life – the life of the once-famous virtuoso violinist Erica Morini (1904-1995) – Holtzman develops timeless themes – hope and defeat, truth or deception, old versus new, the challenges of friendship, the paradoxes of love, and the worthy goals of life – in a counterpoint made more delicious by its exposition through the world of music.

Mariette Hartley's performance as Morini was breathtaking. The interchanges between Morini and her new friend, the unknown master luthier Brian Skarstad (David Nevell), form the only dialogue, yet the story is much heightened by the dramatic violin playing of 14-year-old Geneva Lewis, a prodigy virtuoso in her own right. Could the touching second-act waltz be Hartley's Lullaby of Burbank?

The only false tones were the jarringly discordant off color humor that seemed as out of place as would be Honegger's anvil in the Ode to Joy.

The play appeals strongly both to those who make music from the inside out and to those who enjoy music as listeners and observers. As a performer and composer, I was touched by and appreciated Holtzman's exploration of the nature of the true heart of artistry, the cost of success, and the transience of fame. A favorite moment of mine was when Morini explains to Brian that there are some things that musicians just don't discuss with "civilians." It's a funny line, and Holtzman might have intended this barb to convey the artist's self-perceived superiority to common persons and Philistines, but contrariwise, I have found it, not at all beneath me, but a hard thing to explain some of my deepest musical musings to non-musicians. I identified very strongly with the scene in which Morini and Brian come to see that they each, in their own way – she through playing the violin and he through repairing it – have essentially communed with Stradivarius himself – have made a connection that would be inconceivable to any but a few whose peculiar life experiences might enable such a perspective.

Whether it is truly possible, and whether I should admit it or not, I have unquestionably had this experience myself. It has come after deep study of a composer's score while attempting to understand why the music is the way it is. Of all things, the ink of the masters – at least, before the 20th century – did not fall upon their scores haphazardly. A thought precedes every note. It is enough for many musicians to read a score and play it, even to analyze it in some fashion and demonstrate how this relates to that. But, "Why is the music so?" is a far deeper question.

Actually, many Whys are easily explained, but not all. Why did Joseph Haydn write the development of one of his early symphony movements in five-bar phrases, for instance? It was hardly the norm! I struggled with that question for quite some time many years ago, until I considered what is said of his nature, that he was a jolly and well-liked man. I have known a few of these, and none was without a good sense of humor. In the case of this particular symphony, was "Papa Joe" making a little joke? Can you imagine him in the moment just before he composed this music, sitting there thinking, "Well, what next? Shall I give the orchestra a little fun and write them some five-bar phrases, ha ha?" I think it would be in his nature to do just that, and as weird as it sounds, at the moment that this scenario occurred to me, I felt as if the notes were once again coming into being, as if I were watching Haydn himself pen the odd phrases with a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle in the air, and with the foreknowledge of his musicians' brief consternation and subsequent understanding providing the anticipatory satisfaction that comes to all good pranksters.

This is the Colony Theatre's 38th season. Please support the company in some way. For it to go under would be no joke.

A New Year's Guide to my CD, "Watercolor Menagerie"

"Watercolor Menagerie," my first compact disc of original music for brass quintet, is comprised of several popular single titles and three well-loved multi-movement suites. You can read about this CD at my Website. You can also purchase it there and at iTunes and CD Baby. All of the music on the CD is published by, and available from, Premiere Press.

The CD opens – appropriately, for a recording of music for brass instruments – with a fanfare, "Toot," one of my most popular works. Then comes my most popular suite, "Italian Postcards," with its musical snapshots of Rome, Venice, and Milan.

More stand-alone works and suites follow, all of which audiences find entertaining and enjoyable. They have also all sold well in print, except for the last two tunes, which are contrasting arrangements ("Fanfarish" and "Lyrical") of the New Year's favorite, "Auld Lang Syne." Everyone seems to celebrate New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, but there is little demand for this song, except at midnight as each new year rolls around. This is the story of how these arrangements came to be.

I used to play in Disneyland's Fanfare Trumpeters during the Christmas season, which at Disneyland lasted from Thanksgiving through the Sunday after New Year's Day. Our job was to play for the Candlelight Ceremony, lead the Christmas parades, and play sets of Christmas carols from Cinderella's Castle and the Main Street Train Station.With six or seven sets to play per day for about twenty-two days, we had to memorize a lot of music.

Many fine trumpeters have been members of the Disneyland Fanfare Trumpeters at one time or another, and some of them have gone on to earn nationwide and international fame. But, that's another story. One of the members was my good friend, Kevin Brown, who has directed the Tournament of Roses Herald Trumpeters for many years. He asked me to write a fanfare based on Auld Lang Syne for his Rose Parade group, and the following year, the Disneyland trumpeters took it up, as well. As the Disneyland Christmas season wears on, day after day after Christmas Day, New Year's Day takes on more and more significance, and my Auld Lang Syne fanfare appealed to both the ensemble and our audiences.

The season after my fanfare became part of the repertoire of the Disneyland Fanfare Trumpeters, I became a member of the group, when Bob Malone (yes, THE Bob Malone) left the ensemble. That year, I think, I offered another arrangement to the ensemble, one that ran counter to the group's typical fare of flashy fanfares culminating in paint-peeling high notes. My tender and harmonically-haunting version of The First Noel quickly became a favorite of the group and our audiences, especially after dark, as couples stopped to listen on the drawbridge, with lights twinkling in the trees of the Main Street hub. A few years later, leader David Washburn asked me to write a second version of Auld Lang Syne in chorale style using jazz harmonies. It, too, became a favorite with audiences, and during my five years in the Disneyland Fanfare Trumpeters, I wrote many arrangements for the group. Every so often, we'd play my arrangements for an entire set, which was very satisfying. A few of these are available in print: click HERE for trumpet quartets and HERE for trumpet nonets.

This was before I joined the group, but you get the idea.

So, when I was planning the Watercolor Menagerie CD, I decided to make brass quintet versions of those two arrangements of Auld Lang Syne. They give the recording a nice finish. The CD also includes "Sophie's Waltz," a miniature Viennese waltz named for my dog; the sometimes stentorian "Oration," which features trombone; the ever-popular "The Y2K Bug Blues"; the tender "Lullaby" and "Wedding March"; and three sacred works, "Come Unto Me," "Psalm 23," and "Easter Fanfare on Llanfair." The suite, "Love Letters," is always an audience-pleaser, with its three commentaries on relationships, "First Love," "Missing You," and "Dear John." The four-movement suite, "Watercolor Menagerie," – named for pairs of animals – is the most serious concert work on the CD and features some very interesting parts for piccolo trumpet.

The review in the Journal of the International Trumpet Guild says of my CD: "The music is well crafted, programmatic, and contemporary and has a flavor of Hollywood. Of note is Burkhart's fine work on the piccolo trumpet." I think you'll like it, too!

Check out these links (iTunes and CD Baby) to hear clips. It's easy and inexpensive to buy single titles or the entire CD. Why not give it as a Christmas gift for that person you forgot to buy for this year? If you have a brass quintet, you can even purchase the sheet music.

As the old year winds down and the new year approaches, it's the perfect time to listen to the last two selections on my CD, my arrangements of Auld Lang Syne. There's also a version for SATB of the lyrical version. For that sheet music, click HERE.

Happy New Year, everyone!

"Firsts": College of the Canyons' Symphonic Band Inaugural Concert

On December 3, 2012, I had the pleasure of conducting the inaugural concert of the new Symphonic Band at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. The program, entitled "Firsts," included a wide array of musical styles. Several members of the band performed solos. The goodly-sized audience received the music enthusiastically, and most remained to enjoy the tasty reception that followed.

Membership in the band has grown wonderfully from an enrollment of but one at the first class meeting to a mid-sized ensemble of woodwinds and brass. Some of our members live locally, and some travel (Los Angeles, Burbank, Sierra Madre, Beverly Hills, Granada Hills, and Tarzana) to join in the music-making. Our members include high school students, COC music majors, other regular COC students, COC employees, SCV area residents, music educators, and professional musicians.

We expect to continue to grow and present great programs, so if you are interested in joining us, please email me. [ray at raymondburkhart dot com] We meet on Monday nights from 6pm to 10pm. The next semester begins on February 4, 2013.

Our December concert opened with three fanfares originally published in 1921 in the British arts magazine, Fanfare. They were adapted to suit the instrumentation of the new COC Band. Also on the program was a set of two pieces from a collection of Civil War music that I'm researching and reconstructing: an untitled galop and the well-known and sentimental "When the Swallows Homeward Fly." The Civil War set was followed by a later 19th-century work, the Helicon Schottische, which featured Peter Mockary on tuba.

The COC Symphonic Band devotes most of its rehearsal time to band works, but we are also cultivating smaller ensembles that focus on music for brass and music for "harmony" ensembles, which usually involves pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns. On the December concert, the brass ensemble performed two works: a transcription of Hassler's late-Renaissance choral work, "Verbum caro factum est," and an arrangement of Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me," which featured trumpeters John Klinedinst and Justen Finch.

Other works in a jazzy vein included my arrangement of "The First Noel" and my original composition, "The Y2K Bug Blues," which featured hornists Caitlin Kimmick and Nathan Campbell. I played the trumpet solo.

We also played two important works of the mid 20th-century avant-garde: Terry Riley's ground-breaking "In C" and John Cage's famous "4'33"."

It was a genuinely fun and interesting evening of good music. The venue, the Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center lobby, with its tall, lovely Christmas tree, was perfect. I look forward to more concerts there of great music for great people. We in the band hope you will attend, whether you are in the category of performer or audience member. Either way, you'll be glad you did!

Premiered: "Serenity" for solo horn or horn duo

I thank Dr. Steven Gross and Julie Callahan Gross for premiering my composition, Serenity, on August 9, 2012 at the opening concert of the South African French Horn Society's Fifth National Horn Workshop in Kimberly, South Africa.

At about four minutes in length, Serenity is well-suited for recitals, wedding preludes, and church services. The nature of the music is indicated by its title.

Serenity was commissioned by Dr. Steven Gross, Professor of Horn at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He and Julie are old friends of mine, and as I considered the commission in light of other works for solo instruments, I decided to write a piece for solo horn that could stand alone, but also be performed with an optional second part. Steve performs at horn gatherings around the world, and he and Julie often travel together. I felt this optional second part would allow greater performing possibilities, while still providing a quality new work for the solo horn literature.

Click here for the version for Unaccompanied Horn.

Click here for the version for Two Horns.

Please visit the Premiere Press website to find many more of my compositions and also Watercolor Menagerie, my CD of  original music for brass quintet.

Published: Mass for Brass Quintet, by Steven Williams

Every once in awhile, you meet a lifelong friend. One such friend of mine is trombonist/composer, Steven Williams.

Steven James Williams

We played in the same brass quintet at the University of Southern California while we pursued our Masters' degrees in performance. When we toured the US playing the show "Bugs Bunny on Broadway," he instigated discussions on the philosophy and meaning of Chuck Jones' 1955 Warner Brothers' cartoon, "One Froggy Evening," including the central question of whether Michigan J. Frog was consciously evil or merely had bad timing. And his exacting work as tonmeister for my CD of original music for brass quintet, Watercolor Menagerie, was essential to its success. Good times. Good guy.

Steve ponders things deeply, not that he makes it obvious. He's an easygoing Southern gentleman, of a refined Tennessee variety, and he goes through life with a light touch, a helping hand, and a cheerful smile. He has a terrific sense of humor. We've had many a good chin wag over the years.

He's also a composer of considerable depth and quality.

This blog announces the publication of Steve's "Mass for Brass Quintet." I find it to be profoundly intellectual, yet immediately appealing – highly satisfying to both player and listener. It is carefully based on centuries-old contrapuntal techniques, yet it is always fresh and interesting. It makes you think (or at least, it makes me think), which is an admirable achievement – one not universally attained by composers of concert music.

The work is in five movements: I. Compassio; II. Bellitat; III. Fides; IV. Sacer; and V. Ephemer. Its duration is about 25 minutes total. The work calls for two trumpets in B-flat, horn, trombone, and tuba (the tuba part may be performed on bass trombone). It is well scored and eminently playable by advanced players. He calls for mutes more often than many composers do – even requiring "practice" mutes, which are traditionally not intended for use in concert – and the sound world he achieves ranges from bold to ethereal. I have loved the work since I first heard and played it, and it is the first original composition other than my own works that I have published.

You can hear excerpts of the five movements of Steve's Mass for Brass Quintet on YouTube.

Please visit this page at the Premiere Press site for more information and to place an order.

Published: Isle of Colours

Isle of Colours, my new composition for brass quintet, is now published. You can read my blog about its March 2012 premiere HERE.

Logo by Emilie Pallos Graphic Design

Britain has a long history of great artists. In this regard, it's truly an island of colors. I have recently been inspired by the art of David Hockney, and as I worked on this composition, the theme of British art kept coming to my thought. It seemed perfect to draw upon great British artists as muses for my three movements.

The first movement of Isle of Colours, named for J.M.W. Turner, employs strong themes and harmonic colors. The second movement, which honors John Constable, is a meditative and expansive theme and variations. The third movement is a bossa nova, inspired by the energy and modern appeal of David Hockney's art. There's just something about the subtle hipness of the bossa nova style – its unhurried creativity and freshness – that strikes me as a good musical match for Hockney's work.

To order Isle of Colours, go HERE. It's easy to order through Paypal.