New recording: Tuba and 12

I am constantly amazed at the colleagues I have a chance to regularly make music with here in Washington, DC.  Since I started recording and working in audio over the past few years, the chance to record my colleagues in the Marine Band is always a treat.  Today, I’d like to share a recording I made recently for composer Anne McGinty, of her piece called Tuba and 12.  Anne composed the piece for solo tuba, piccolo, flute, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 trumpets, 2 horns, and 2 trombones.  You can find the music for purchase at Anne’s website, McGinty Music. 

Here are Anne’s notes about the piece:

Tuba & 12 was inspired by a Bedouin proverb that states: “While the words are yet unspoken, you are master of them; when once they are spoken, they are master of you.”

Proverbs, in general, state a general piece of advice. This piece assumed that words were spoken, resulting in tension and an apology. Relationships, the first movement, has brass vs. woodwinds, tonality vs. dissonance, duples vs. triplets, et al. as well as the synergy and cooperation among all. Unspoken Words is the second movement and the dissonant opening theme in the piccolo and flute is presented three times. The third movement is Resolution. Over a constant low pedal G, the horn ostinato adds tranquility as all the themes from the first two movements return in fragmented form, before all is finally resolved.

Although tuba has top billing in the title, each instrument is equally important.

Many thanks to Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church for the use of their beautiful space to make this recording, and to Ryan Nowlin for his conducting and fantastic producer’s ear.

Personnel on this recording are:

Tuba - John Cradler

Piccolo - Courtney Morton

Flute - Beth Plunk

Clarinets - Tracey Paddock, Bill Bernier

Bass clarinet - Barbara Haney

Alto Sax - Steve Temme

Trumpets - Matt Harding, Michael Mergen

French horns - Hilary Harding, Mark Questad

Trombones - Bryan Bourne, Tim Dugan

Conductor and Producer - Ryan Nowlin

Producer, engineer, mixing - Chris Clark

Mastering - Michael Ducassoux, Red Room Productions

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Thanks for listening! 

Oz meets Texas!

In May of 2015, two trombonists met at a trumpet workshop, no less...

They knew their lives had reached a new low, hanging around trumpeters and such...

They decided they MUST. TAKE. ACTION.

Introducing....

WORLDWIDE BONE

Oz meets Texas

Australian composer and trombonist Brendan Collins
Trombonist Chris Clark

Jazz Duet No. 1, by Brendan Collins

Sometimes you get lucky in life and run into people you just really have a great time with!  Brendan, in addition to being a talented trombonist, is a fantastic composer.  He has written a large amount of brass music, and continues to write interesting and fun compositions!  He has recently written a great quintet that Valor Brass hopes to perform this year.  I also took his Trombone Hymn for 4 trombones and recorded that with some friends this spring - that is a really beautiful piece.  Check out his music and give it a play!  

Brendan has generously offered to make his Jazz Duet available as a free download here on the site.  You can get it HERE.  Please take the time to join the email list on the site as well if you download the piece!

For the video, Brendan recorded the top line at home in Australia, and I recorded the bottom line and put the two together for the video.  It was great fun collaborating in this way.  We are already looking to do some more virtual projects together soon!  Virtual projects can yield REAL results...cool!

Enjoy.

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Brendan Collins: Two Motets for Four Trombones

Last May, on a trip to the ITG (yeah, that's right, trumpet conference) conference in Ohio, I had the chance to meet an Aussie composer named Brendan Collins.  Rex Richardson performed his Trumpet Concerto at the conference, and besides enjoying the piece a lot, Brendan is a great guy, and we may or may not have shared a few beers while in Columbus.  I shared a copy of our new Valor Brass CD with Brendan, and we continued our correspondence throughout the rest of 2015, and I got to know him a little better.  He's a trombone player as well, so he's got that going for him!  He teaches and composes in Australia, and is busy writing all kinds of new music.  This winter, he sent me a copy of a trombone quartet he wrote called Two Motets.  The first movement, Sacred, is just beautiful!  The 2nd movement has a very playful syncopated motif throughout the piece that is a lot of fun to play, and lays very well on the trombone (just as you would expect from a trombonist-turned-composer)!  Brendan mentioned he would love to hear a recording if I ever had a chance to play the piece, so with my ongoing interest in audio production, it seemed like a great opportunity to do a small project that would benefit both of us in multiple ways.   We made the recording in one short session with some fun and extremely informative mentoring from a new colleague of ours, Christian Amonson.  Christian runs his own audio and video production company called Arts Laureate, and is as enthusiastic about audio as he is knowledgeable.  Here's a cool video Christian made about a recent production Arts Laureate did... Hope you enjoy the quartet!