Wednesday was a full day: 100 miles to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania for a quintet recital, another 100 miles to Clearfield, just in time to catch the bus for the Army Field Band concert that night. It was a great day, though: Slippery Rock is home to an old friend and colleague, and the Slippery Rock recital was the premiere of my two newest compositions:
Fugue and Variation and
Lonely Beauty.I moved to Denton, Texas in 2001 to start a Master of Music degree at the University of North Texas. Euphonium player Brian Meixner was the first person I met there; we were in the same pre-semester meeting for the Music Department grad students. He introduced me to my wife that week. Brian and I remained close at UNT, and we still run into each other every year or two.
Meixner now leads the Wind Ensemble and teaches Low Brass at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. Chamber groups and soloists from the Army Field Band have performed there many times, and it has a reputation in the band for having good students and an environment that encourages growth.
Aaron Kadrmas (trombone), Ward Yager (trumpet) and Lauren Veronie (euphonium) had been to Slippery Rock before, but not me. It’s a beautiful campus, with a small town vibe I don’t usually associate with college towns.
After lunch at the campus cafeteria, we warmed up and hit a few spots from the program in the recital hall. I should mention, our quintet isn’t really a quintet: It’s a traditional brass quintet (tuba, trombone, horn, 2 trumpets) with added euphonium and drum set. The euphonium and drum set don’t play on every piece, but having them gives us more options for programming, and gives me more voices to write for.
The recital went really well, especially for the first one of tour. It was our first performance of the beautiful and demanding
Quintet for Brass by Steven Sacco, Lauren Veronie performed a great rendition of
Napoli for Euphonium, and my new pieces went even better than I hoped they would.Having an appreciative audience in a friendly environment always makes a difference; stress levels just seem to be lower. The turn-out for the recital wasn’t huge, but the kids were terrific, in keeping with their reputation. And the Quintet’s Facebook Fan numbers got a nice boost, which is always gratifying after a performance.
It was fantastic seeing Meixner again, and meeting his students. A shout-out to any of them who are reading this, and thanks for the welcome; we’ll definitely be back.
