Some Upcoming Events I'm Excited About

We're fully in packing mode now, with suitcases, clothes, and North American outlet adapters strewn all over the house. And it's all because we're heading home for the holidays! We haven't been home at Christmas since 2007, so I am really looking forward to being around our family and friends, relaxing instead of playing a million performances of The Nutcracker and Die Fledermaus, and eating Nanny's chocolate gravy and biscuits. Mmmmmm.

I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging while we're there, but I'll try to do a couple posts, probably recapping stuff that happened months ago. In the meantime, I thought I would let everyone know about some upcoming events I'm involved in.

First, as I alluded to in a previous post, I have been invited back to my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, to do a week-long residency at the School of Music. It will take place February 7th-12th, and I'll be teaching and performing in a variety of ways. On Monday & Tuesday of that week, I'll be giving several masterclasses on various topics. On Thursday I'll be performing a concerto with the UT Wind Ensemble, on Friday I'll give a solo recital, and on Saturday I'll do another concerto with the UT Symphony Orchestra. There are also some events involving local high-school students interspersed throughout the week.

I also just found out this last week that I've been officially invited to be a featured faculty artist at the 2011 International Trombone Festival, which this year just happens to be in Nashville, TN. It will be in late June, and I'm planning on giving a solo recital and a masterclass. The ITF was held for many years in Nashville, and now they're bringing it back there for the 40th anniversary of the festival. It will be held at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University.

I'm really, really excited about these two events. Before I moved to Vienna and immersed myself in opera and orchestra, my musical life consisted of solo playing, small ensembles, teaching, and jazz. I'm thrilled that now after 3 seasons in Vienna, I'm slowly but surely getting some opportunities to "re-branch" out and involve myself in some other areas of music besides orchestra. Although I love my job beyond words, it makes me feel sometimes a bit one-dimensional. But now with these upcoming opportunities, I am feeling like my old musical self again. It is so nice to have a thick stack of solo works on my stand in the office, and to spend my practice time digging into pieces which I haven't played in years, or in some cases have never played.

I've also got an opportunity coming up to play some jazz in Vienna, if you can believe it. One of our principal trombonists, Dietmar Küblböck (don't try to pronounce it), is an avid jazz performer, and he had an idea several months ago to put together a jazz trombone group based around me and him. We've now got a concert planned in March in one of the recital halls of the Musikverein for a 5-bone ensemble with rhythm section. Though if I'm truthful, it's not really 5 trombones... it's 4 bones and a cimbasso! There's a local tuba player who is an unbelievable cimbasso player (cimbassist?), and he's apparently got lots of jazz experience. Should be fun! I've really missed playing and hearing jazz in Vienna, and I am SO looking forward to pulling out my King 2B and wailing on these Wieners!

I'll post more exact schedules of all these things as they get closer.