Trumpet Performances This Week

As UCSD finishes up Spring Quarter, I'll be performing on trumpet more than I have since my undergrad.  This week, I'm playing:

- In the UCSD Chamber Orchestra, Schubert's Symphony No. 8 and Schumann's Overture, Scherzo and Finale.  Tuesday, May 31st, 8 pm in CPMC Room 122.

-With fellow graduate students in Fausto Romitelli's An Index of Metals (conducted by Martin Hiendl with Leslie Leytham, voice).  Thursday, June 2nd, 8pm in CPMC Room 122.

- For the undergraduate composition juries (3rd year) on Barry Lockwood's The Truth is Coming Out.  Saturday, June 4th, 10 am in CPMC Room 100.

An Index of Metals is a diabolical, often hallucinatory chamber opera with some jazz and rock influences. The former is readily apparent in the trumpet part. Here's a preview by the Ictus Ensemble, a bad-ass group that has been influential on our interpretation:

All this trumpet playing is part of a push toward becoming a self-reliant "complete" musician, rather than just a specialist composer.  When interacting with musicians in a community, the role of composer specialist is frequently reduced to "virtuoso engraver."  This, of course, only works in musical communities that rely on notation, and even then, competing with the artifacts of dead, two-hundred year old superstars is daunting.  Over the next year I'll be putting together a show of mostly my own music for trumpet and electronics, alone or together.  The intent is to create a self-sustaining musical space capsule - one that can tour through a wide range of musical communities.