Newsletter, Spring 2015

by andybharms

Hello colleagues!

It is time for my Spring Update, and there is plenty of news to fill you in on. I have my hands on two new commissions, Erasing Myself for trumpet, alto saxophone, percussion, and electric guitar, by Daniel Harrison, and Voices from an Unseen World for trumpet and piano by Stephen Variames. Both pieces are outstanding and will make great additions to the repertoire.

I have a lot of exciting performing opportunities coming up with all kinds of groups. First is Kentucky Symphony, playing some high notes on Holst’s The Planets and some other great works. Then, my personal recital, which is the debut of several long-term projects and groups with which I’ve been working throughout my doctorate. Maria Fuller is playing with me on the Haydn, David Abraham (percussion) and I are performing a particularly challenging work by David Crumb called Awakening, Paul Poston and I are premiering a revision of his work for trumpet and live electronics called Anticitizen One, and the Iridium Brass Quintet is performing Ewazen’s Frostfire.

In the coming weeks, we will hit the booth with Paul’s, Dan’s, and Stephen’s piece, and add a work adapted for me by Annika Socolofsky called Zelik which I premiered on my last recital. I also plan on recording John Cheetham’s Contraptions for solo trumpet, which I helped commission while a Masters student at UMKC. On the subject of adaptation, I’ve begun work on a trumpet ensemble arrangement of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Tam O’Shanter, for no less than 9 trumpets. I’ve also got a couple of articles coming up for submission to our journal, one on the origin of the Torelli Sinfonia and another about practice technique, so I am excited for those to see the light of day. Speaking of ITG, I will be helping out with stage management at the conference this year.

With the Iridium Brass Quintet, we are working on a couple of projects, first and foremost our debut group recital here at CCM’s campus, and working on a couple of venues in Over-the-Rhine, and at area colleges. The group sounds fantastic and I am lucky to be working with these amazing musicians.

It’s all about the music.

That’s all for now!