David Bilger: Former Principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Trumpet Professor at Northwestern University and the Curtis Institute of Music

[Music] Welcome to Anthony Plogue on Music. This is Eddie Lutema, the shows producer. Here to introduce Tony's guest for this interview, David Bilger. David is an incredible trumpet player who's had a stellar career as both a performer and also an educator. He was principal trumpet with the Dallas Symphony and following that, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra. After teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music for 27 years, he also became professor of trumpet at Northwestern's Been and School of Music. As an example of how music can have a profound influence on a person's and even a family's life, Tony starts the conversation by asking Dave how he began teaching Busset Azizi from Afghanistan, and how he was able to help Busset study in the United States. He talks about the powerful impact that process and journey, which at times was extremely dangerous, had on Busset and his family. Dave continues by talking about his two main teachers, Dave Hickman and Mark Gould, and their different approaches to teaching. As a student, Dave was a member of the summer student orchestra, the Colorado Philharmonic, and he talks about what it was like to have Michael Sachs, now the principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra, and Dick Prasser, who's now the principal trumpet of the Rochester Philharmonic as roommates. Tony and Dave end part one with an in-depth discussion of auditions, including musical preparation, mental approaches, and even talking about some current issues with the orchestral audition process. But before Dave and Tony delve into their conversation, we'd love to share a brief message with you from our sponsor friends at Dorico. Create Music that moves with Dorico V, the brand new version of the music, notation, and composition software from Steinberg. Packed with new features throughout the application, it's the perfect time to update from your current version, or to try Dorico for the first time. You can start for free with Dorico S.E. or Dorico for iPad, which now allow projects with up to eight players, or step up to Dorico Elements, which now allows projects of unlimited size and features and expanded in Grave Mode. For professional use, choose Dorico Pro, which has many unique features you won't find in any other software. Visit www.steinberg.net/dorico today, and make more time for music. Dave Bilger, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. We have a lot to talk about, and I would like to first start out with an interview you did. I don't know if you'd call it an interview, but I think it was called the one minute trumpet, and you were asked what your motto was. And you said your motto was, "Do it now." So we'll start with this question. What are you doing now? What am I doing now? Well, it's a bit. I'm outside of this interview. Yeah, a drink and coffee. That's right. It's in the morning for you. It is. Well, I'm teaching at Northwestern. I'm in my final moment of teaching at the Curtis Institute. I'm going to be going through the end of April of '24, and then turning the studio over to Mike Sachs, which is sort of exciting. And then I'll be at Northwestern full-time. I'm still playing the trumpet some. I just played a week with Philly and my old gig, which was surprisingly moving experience after being out of the orchestra for 15 months to step back into the chair. It felt pretty normal and pretty good, and more fun than I thought it might even be. That was Christmas program, right? Yeah, it was the glorious sound of Christmas, which is. And I played a family concert, so I was joking that those were the shows I used to try to get out of. When I was in the band, but now I came back for it. So I'm playing teaching, just not playing every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, night. How you doing, Lorsello playing? I've done a few recitals this year. I played actually some stuff that chose and veiled with Ed Carroll. Was at the Hamamatsu International Music Festival in August. I did some solo playing there and also played in a wind band, which I hadn't done since college, so that was sort of interesting. Although half the repertoire were orchestral transcriptions, which I thought was a little ironic, but did a little mini recital at UC Boulder. So some playing like that, you know, it's just finding a new balance between lots of teaching and still getting out there and getting them out of the piece to the face. So I'd like to start with a story that I think maybe shows sort of a tendency that you have had over the years. And correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think over the years your trumpet playing has obviously grown as anybody's would. You've always been great, but you made me great in a different sense now. But also as a person, and it seems like you more and more give to people. And I think the prime example of that is the experience you had with Bessette is easy. And some people have heard about this already, so I'm sorry if this is repeating something that some people have heard. But I find this to be an incredibly moving story. And I actually have an addendum to that story, which I think you would enjoy hearing as well. So if you could start with how you came in touch with Bessette and what happened. Because to me this is a great example of using music to really help people. What also shows the reach of the internet because Bessette reached out to me over Facebook and he sent a Facebook message, which was, "Hi, my name is Bessette, and I'm the best trumpet player in Afghanistan because there's only two." And I just laughed out loud at that, and I was like, "Okay, I got to find out what this kid's about." And so we found a way to meet up using. It was a while ago, so we tried a bunch of different platforms, and we ended up using Zoom, which was relatively unstable, especially with his internet connection in Afghanistan. But we started working together because he was like, "Hey, I really want to get better on the trumpet. I want to go to interlock." And I'm like, "Well, let's start working on the trumpet playing first and see where it takes you." And so we would do these lessons, and time change was the difference between Kabul and Philly was challenging, just finding times where we could do it. And I ended up being fairly early in the morning for him, and fairly late at night for me. And one day he was a little late, and well, he was actually there on time, but he hadn't warmed up, and I'm like, "What's up?" And he goes, "Well, you know, it rained." And I was like, "What does that have to do with anything?" And then he said, "Well, I'll send you some pictures." And he sent me photographs, and it rained, but he was trudging through like two feet of mud in the streets. To try to get to the Afghan National Institute of Music, on him where he had internet and a microphone, and could actually do the lessons. He was making sacrifices to make that work for us to meet. And then we worked on, you know, getting his materials together. There's a wonderful woman in Dallas named Robin Coravaro. I knew from my time in Dallas, who was involved, and she did a lot of the paper work kind of stuff. She helped with filling out, you know, his applications and stuff, and I did the musical stuff. And he sent in an application and music, and they offered him a spot, which I thought was really cool. Really excited. They offered him a good deal of scholarship money, which was half. And I'm like, "Okay, but we got to fly him over. We got to get him set up over here. We need, for one year, we need to get 35 grand." Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And so I started to go fund me, and people just like stepped up, and it became sort of a big deal. And we had some really wonderful folks. Yeah, and Ignise, again, a music director in Philly gave five grand towards it, chairman of the board, matched that, and then we got donations from $5 on up, and made it work. And then there was an issue, it was during a time politically when we were more interested in keeping the country closed, shall I say. So it was quite a, an ordeal getting him his F1V set of common study. And in fact, at first it was denied. And so I'm like, "Oh my gosh, we've done all of this stuff, and he's not going to get into the country." But eventually it worked out, and he got a call from the embassy in Kabul to come in, and he wasn't sure what that was about. But it was actually to give him his visa. And then he came over, and from there, right before he came, he said, "Can we do a Zoom with my parents?" I guess. And so I was in Colorado, and I was in it like a small, crummy condo, and my son was fairly young at the time, and it was just a one-bedroom. I had nowhere to sort of be quiet and be on the internet. So I went down into the lobby of the hotel, and so his parents who only speak Pashto are on the call. And it was on a speaker, and people are looking at me like, "I'm some sort of terrorist or something." Because his dad was a little severe, and he was wearing all black, and speaking of dialect of Farsi, which is what Pashto is. But his dad was like, "Thank you, thank you." His mom's crying. his dad is like, you've got to make sure he gets to go to college in the US too. And I'm like, oh man, I just finished one project. And now I'm going to start another. But it's a big responsibility. It was. And once again, it was one step at a time. Let's just get through getting him started at interlocking first and see what happens. But as it worked out, he ended up doing his undergrad, did another GoFundMe raised over 80 grand for his college. I mean, people were so generous. It was, through over 1,100 donors. So if it ever started to doubt humanity, well, this sort of showed me that people do still care. And it was interesting because Fox News had picked up the story. And so there are all sorts of people like donating to a Muslim kid from Fox News. I said, see the relic on it. But it was a story, right? It was this story. Who could not respond to this kid wanting to make his life better through music? You know, I always knew that the trumpet might end up being ancillary to him. It might just be getting him here. He can play. But he also was sort of brilliant. He did a triple major in college. And is now doing motivational speaking. And he's working for a nonprofit NGO that is helping immigrants. I mean, you know, if the Taliban ever leaves, he's going to go be president of Afghanistan. You know, you know, he's amazing, amazing guy. I've heard that where he's working now, also, he revamped their computer system or something in a way that is being used around the country now. So I mean, you're right. I mean, he sounds like a completely brilliant guy. And very, very nice. And it all started with the trumpet. He just loved the trumpet and he wanted to do something. But, you know, the trumpet for so many folks is a way out of where their existence is at that moment. Yeah. Whether it's somebody from New York City or Kabul or Paris or you name it, you know, folks are. It's a way to experience life in a different way and to escape our realities. And for him, it was both a physical one and more of an emotional reality that he was able to escape by coming over. Right. And I'm sure you know the story about how he got his parents over like the last moment with the photograph and all of that, which is amazing. We were all freaking out a little bit when it became clear that with our leaving Afghanistan things were going to get bad really quickly for many of the folks over there. So my wife and I were busy trying to help an NGO process paperwork to try to get everybody that we could find out that wanted to get out, which was a lot of the staff and the musicians from the Afghan National Institute of Music. And they actually, they did get out over to Portugal. It didn't work to bring them to the U.S. but we were all freaking out. And by that instead of freaking out was just getting it done. And he had been doing a lot of work. He'd interned in DC. And so he knew he was politically connected and he had an ID from having gone to a house vote with the person he was interning for and sent it to his sister via text and his sister is like, "This is my brother. He's in the U.S. government." And the soldiers let them in and Bacetta had arranged a flight for them. And that was the day that there was the bombing at that gate. They got through about an hour before. There was carnage right there. So it's an amazing story, the whole thing's an amazing story. And it's sort of what we do, which is in music, which has changed lives one at a time. I had heard that they were not going to let his family through. And as a last stitch effort, he thought, "Oh, I'll text this photo." And that did the trick. And then like, I guess an hour later, just where his family was, it was bombed. Yeah, that's where the bomb went off. Yeah. And they had gone through. It was quite an ordeal for them to actually get from where they lived to the airport because there were Taliban patrols. And his dad had been involved with NATO. So he was, things were not going to go well if he was caught. So they had called in some favors, I think, to sort of get to the airport in the first place at great risk. And then they weren't going to be let in. I had the follow-up that I had or the adendum to this was that last January, I was in Houston for an opera convention. And the final day, I was with Ron Kid, a good friend of mine in the brightest, and Roger Stoner, who has a close relationship also with Bessette, was there. And we were being served at the hotel several days by this young Afghan woman, a very sweet girl. I won't say her name. But very sweet girl who had yet to get her green card. And we ended up talking to her and she really wanted to get her green card, but there were so many hoops to jump through, et cetera, et cetera. And the very last day, Roger had Bessette's telephone number. And we called Bessette where she could do a video conference with him. And I've never seen somebody express such joy in her face. They spoke, it's called Farsi, I guess, or what is the other one? It's a dialect of Farsi called Pashto. Yeah. Pashto, okay. But that was sort of like a follow-up. And that was the first time, actually the only time of Methyam. And that was only to say hello and thanks for helping this girl. But he seems like just a marvelous person. He is an amazing young man. Anyway, I guess some of the things that we should talk about have to do with trumpet. So that's a good idea. Yeah, why not? So, you're two main teachers, I think, were Dave Hickman and Mark Gould. And I happened to mention it to my wife, Kathy. And her response was to say, he must really like abuse. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about Dave and Mark. Because they're both great teachers, but I think they accentuate different aspects of playing or music. And maybe you could talk about what you got from both of those teachers. Yeah, so I did my undergrad at University of Illinois with Dave Hickman. And it was interesting because he was a very demanding teacher. And he took great pride in making sure his students were well prepared, which has to do with, you know, not making excuses. And pushing things always being on top of things. The approach was more like fixing technical stuff, which I guess you would think is pretty normal for working with an undergrad student. You know, just making sure transposition is there, single-tonguing, double-tonguing, flexible ability, you know, all the check, all the boxes. But it was a lot of what he did, which was sort of amazing from a student's point of view as he would be like, well, kid, play it like this. And he'd pick up a trumpet cold and just nail something and then you would try to sound like that. It wasn't necessarily deep in a way of like, well, here's what you're doing physically or here's what you're thinking about when you're doing this. It was just here at Do It, which there's a beautiful simplicity to that, actually. If you're able to actually hear it and do it. Honestly, you know, it worked in an amazing way and I'm not disparaging that style of teaching at all. But it wasn't necessarily sort of looking at things intellectually and emotionally. It was much more technical and here's what you do. And with my upbringing, which, which, Gould used to denigrate for being some sort of like Midwest kid, he used to call me preacher Dave and he's always like, I've got to meet your parents. I've got to meet your parents like you're so boring and you're so straight and narrow and you didn't know like, did he ever meet your parents? He did, actually. And it was, it was, well, that's a whole nother story. But I was just going to ask, was he well behaved or was he well behaved? He was exceptionally well behaved. Okay. That's great. I mean, it was like the five minutes in his life where he was well behaved. But I appreciate that from him. But when I got to study with Gould, it was more like, well, the first thing he said is, you sound pretty good from some, for some white boy from the Midwest, but you're in New York now and you got to learn to play like a Jew. And I'll, but yes, sir, Mr. Gould, I know I do what he just said. You know, yeah. It's like, what does that mean? Yeah. Especially yes, sir, as an answer. It's brilliant. Yeah. It was just like yes, sir. Yeah. And his point of view was you have to think about music and you have to feel it. You know, it's all about impact and the emotionality behind it and wearing your heart and your sleeve, which being like a boring white kid from the Midwest was not exactly my natural inclination on the horn. So it opened up things in a different way. But I wouldn't have been able to do that had I not had the background that Dave Hickman gave me of technical stuff. So it was a really healthy progression for me. It worked well for me. I'm not sure how it would have worked for others. But in that way, it was like I was ready to learn the lessons that Mark wanted to teach because of the background I'd had with Dave. Yeah. I remember one time I was in New York and I went to here to go to Damrune at the Met and there was one sort of a lyrical trouble. phrase, I'm sure you know it. And Levine turned to Mark as he was playing it and just smiled. You could tell that he just really liked what Mark was doing. And so I went down to the pit doing the break to say hi. And Mark was not there, but on his stand was a book and the book was Lonesome Dove by Larry McHughn and so he's playing Wagner and reading about Cowboys. I thought that I guess that's pretty typical for Mark. I thought that was great. Well Mark talked about the opera. He was forbidding me from taking an audition at the match. Really? Because he said, he said it's a retirement job. It was a section job and he goes, you're just going to be here forever and you're just going to be bored and it's just your quickest way to death. And I'm like, okay, yes sir. That's interesting because I mean there's some incredibly great moments in opera. But it's the idea of it being moments versus being continuously able to contribute. But in talking with Mark further about it later, he talked about how you feel time passed differently when you're in the pit. Really? Have show? Because everything is slower. I mean you do have sometimes, like if you're playing Magic Flute, you've got 50 minutes where you just sit and read Lonesome Dove. Or whatever you feel like. It's moments of intensity surrounded by hours of monotony I think. And he said, your body gets into this vibe where you're just moving slower. And that from Mark could have been chemical but at the same time. It's also like a point of view. It does feel different than being on the stage in a symphony orchestra. Yeah. And I would think Mark is the type of person that would need a lot of stimulation I would think. Yeah. I mean I think intellectually you know he would want to be engaged. The thing about Mark is that he's a student of the craft. So you know sitting there in the Met and hearing the singers, some of the best singers in you know on the planet or maybe ever doing what they do right above you. That can keep you pretty engaged. Yeah for sure. And I'm sure he got a lot of great ideas about phrasing from the singers too. Oh without a doubt. And also I know it's easy to bash James Levine for some of his personal shortcomings, some of which you know could easily be called criminal but as a musician oh my goodness I got to sub at the Met and watch him work and what he could bring to the podium was something incredibly special. I know that Mark sure like we won't comment on all the other stuff. Yeah that's pretty. The behavior that's inexcusable and enabled because of his great talent on the podium. Well it's a different era too. Yes that stuff wouldn't no one can do that anymore. Thank God. Yeah for sure. So you also had I guess it was just a week of lessons with Tom Stevens. Yeah. Since I guess we're going down this road of abuse because I study with Tom too and Tom should we say very direct but you you played I guess you played the Henderson variation movements for him. Yeah you did a lot of homework didn't you Tony? I did sound yeah. Just actually just a call out. There's a great interview with you from Mark doing on Mark's mouthpiece. So if anybody's interested in exploring things further that's a great interview. I mean I've listened to other things too but yeah that's a great interview. Oh thanks. Oh Mark's fun. But yeah so it was up in in BAMF. I was up there with my brass quintet and it was six weeks at the festival and one week was with Tom Stevens and Roger Bobo was also up there. Okay. And then Canadian brass and I'm talking about with with Ronnie Rom and Freddie Mills was up there for the rest of the time. So I got a week with Tom Stevens which was I have to say I've heard all of these stories and I did witness him be painfully direct with some folks but with me he was always incredibly generous with his time and very helpful and very positive. So I don't know if I caught him at a good moment or or or what but I didn't experience any of the any of that other stuff although I was prepped for it because I'd been warned. Right. But when I was playing Henderson what's the best recording of that piece? Well there's Tom's right. I mean so I lived with that recording and probably given where I was in my in my life which was second year of undergrad and having been working with with Hickman saying well okay play it like this. I treated the recording as as as my teacher and I was probably playing it back as close to the way Stevens played it as I could possibly do it. So that might have been one of the ways that it went a little easier on me is that there was no sort of moving away from the way he saw the piece. He's one of the one of the greats you know one of the all-time greats and what what he did for for us as trumpet players is incredibly meaningful all the commissioning all of the expansion of solo repertoire all that well you know sounding great in the orchestra all every day. Yeah for sure. Yeah for really amazing you know you think about modern wise words like okay Hokkan has commissioned all those all these things but before Hokkan it was Tom Stevens commissioning all those works and recording things and showing us you know Paris Conservatory rep that people had been overlooking and I mean it's just just amazing. Yeah you know it's somehow I'll just get this bike really quickly but on that album with the the Henderson's also the Frank Campo Times and Frank said that he gave the music to Tom and it has like you know a page or two pages of notes at the beginning and he called Tom like about two days later and he said I'd like to you know if you'd like to get together I can explain the piece to you and Tom said I've already recorded it and Frank listened to the recording and he said everything was there that he wanted you know it's just perfect the way he wanted it. There you go. Yeah so there you go. Well anyway get back to you um Colorado Philharmonic which is now the National Repertory Orchestra. You were there for one summer and you're what what a group of roommates it was you and Michael Sachs and who plays first with Cleveland and and that poster, Prasser? Prasser. Yeah. Prasser. Who plays first with Rochester Philharmonic and what was that like the few of you guys roaming together? I was a little it was a little crazy. I actually did two summers at NRO so that was my second my second summer there. Well back back back in the day um when you got into what was then called the Colorado Philharmonic you got a letter you know not an email but actually like you know when when people used mail right if you remember back to that. I do. And it started off with like being at the Colorado Philharmonic is a lot like camping. How cool is it? Because the facilities they had was it had been like they'd purchased an abandoned boy scout camp literally and that's where we stayed so the accommodations were just horrific and so we were in this corner room in a cabin and there was a in the bathroom there was a bear claw tub that didn't work and we just had piles of trumpet cases in there. But you know it was a it was a time where most of the time you're just out out of the room and just practicing outdoors or going for hikes or or doing whatever but it was it was big fun. I mean Doug was I think a year younger maybe two and he grew up in that area so we'd go over to his his parents house in Golden Colorado and played some golf up at altitude which was fun because you could actually feel like a golfer because the ball went like 40% further because we had a bear. And you know we so we had fun but we played a lot of music I mean just a ton of repertoire and then Mike came back and did the next summer as well and sort of took the reins is the the head honcho that's that second summer. I just think back on that and I think you guys are now like three iconic players over many years but as students I mean we just serious all the time or or did you have your own. Oh no I mean first of all it's summer festivals so I mean you're just you know it was also an era where there was a lot more overt party and going on I think that then is is allowed now I think a lot of the festivals they keep them a slight bit more of a watchful eye on what's going on so there were I shouldn't I shouldn't tell a lot of stuff but tell it and if need be we can add it out later. Yeah I mean there was there was a concert that was a fundraiser and it was just an awful sort of place some Strauss Waltz's and some you know a couple of pops tunes and for noisy audience of of Drunks so some people that have been there in the past one of them a bass player went and got a keg for before the concerts So, both of the orchestra, and this, this, this again highlights, "Gul calling me preacher Dave" was like, "No, I have to play. I'm not going to drink until after the concert." Yeah, yeah. But I might have been the only one in the band who wasn't ripped for the show. And it really showed. The orchestra was pretty terrible that night. And the next morning we had rehearsal and Carl Toppalo was a conductor. And he showed up and just absolutely reamed the orchestra out. He goes, "You know, for most of you, this could be the best orchestra you ever play in. And you're treating it like this." And he just like, "Whoa, it was just, it was brutal." And you know, a lot of folks were not feeling so great that morning either after a night of some hard party. And so, now it was not all work. And plus you're in Colorado. So, you know, you want to be out in nature and you want to be doing stuff. But it was a good balance, I think. But it was really clear at that point that the folks who took it seriously were going to go farther than the folks who didn't. And it set things up really nicely for the next year when Mike and I were both getting, starting at the MM program at Juilliard together. We were in a brass quintet. You know, I don't know if Mike is talking about doing crazy things. I don't know if you played this concert, but I think it was in Hilton, they played in Juilliard where Mike and Dave Mayo between the dress rehearsal and the concert completely shaved their heads for the concert. Yeah, I was not playing the show, but I was in the audience. Really? Okay. That must have been stunning, I would think. Well, they played great. I mean, it sounded amazing, but seeing those guys with their head shape was a little bit funny. And then Dave Mayo ended up joining the Air Force. Yeah, he became a pilot. Pilot, yeah. So, yeah, it fit maybe. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, of course, after you graduated, you played in the brass quintet with Michael at Juilliard, but after you graduated, you did a lot of freelancing. And you actually played in like some, I don't know if you say jazz or commercial groups, I think it was like on Mondays. And you played with Lou Salath amongst other people. That must have been a fantastic experience. Yeah, I had, when I was at undergrad at University of Illinois, I had the experience of playing a lot of jazz. And actually, I played a lot of jazz in high school and got a scholarship to college from Woody Herman, because there was a jazz improv competition that he ran that for some crazy reason I did will in, because that wasn't exactly my forte, but I could sort of get around enough. And so I continued to play jazz. When I got to New York, it seemed sort of natural to play in some commercial stuff. So I ended up subbing Broadway shows, which was great. I played some television jingles in the studios. But on Mondays, when Broadway was dark, there were these, what they call rehearsal bands, because you didn't rehearse, you rehearsed on the job. And that I played in a band that was run by Tom Pearson, was his name, and credible jazz pianist and writer. And the band sometimes Lou Salath was playing Mike Mossman. I don't know if you know Mike Philip Mossman, but he's terrific, terrific jazz player. Saxes, sometimes it was, you never knew who was going to show up, but it was guys from Saturday night live band would be there. Anthony Jackson played bass, Kenwood Denard played drums. I mean, it was like all first-call world. And I started off on fourth trumpet and then got moved up to third trumpet, and then one day played second trumpet and went, "I don't know, I'm going to be some of those lower parts again." But yeah, I got to play with Lou and actually played some commercial stuff with him. Did you ever play with Philadelphia, let's say, did you ever play like a pop scotchet? We actually took a couple of solos, jazz solos? Yeah, more in Dallas, because when I was there, during my seven years there, we did like 14 weeks of Europe pops. So it was a lot of pops. So, you know, if the changes were in the book, you play the changes. Yeah. Well, with the orchestras, you've played with, to get into these orchestras, you've had to take auditions, of course. And you have a lot of students now who I think are playing in orchestras, and I wanted to get your ideas on number one, how you would prep for an audition, and would that be different from student to student? And then also in terms of taking the audition mentally, if you would give your students ideas of how to approach an audition, how to get the best results on that particular day. Sure. Well, that's a good nuts and bolts kind of question. I mean, first of all, to preface that the audition process sucks, and it is broken. And I can't think of a better one, a better way to do it, but you see auditions where there's no hires, and it's not that there aren't good players there. It's the way the process works, and the way the committees are formed, and sort of a lack of unanimity sometimes on what folks are listening for. And the reason I'm bringing this up before we talk about preparation and performance of auditions, it's really important to understand if you can what a specific orchestra might be looking for, is there a style that that orchestra plays in? Do you know if it's a section job, what is the first player to? If it's a principal job, what's the tradition of that orchestra? Is it more of a powerhouse? Is it an accuracy based ensemble? Is it a one that values individualism and musicianship more? Because it affects how you're going to approach excerpts on what you're going to play? With that in mind, let me just ask a quick question. With that in mind, if you were a younger player now, super talented younger player, who could fill a position, a big position, and there was, let's say, a principal trumpet open in Philadelphia or Chicago or New York? Yeah, which there is right now. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But there's not in Chicago or New York. But if there were openings in those three orchestras, would you prepare differently in terms of the way you play, or would you just think, here's the way I play, and if it fits your orchestra great, if it doesn't, I just want to give the best example of what I can do. Well, that's a fascinating philosophical question. No wonder you're a composer, you're a deep thinker guy. Well, no, I mean, it is because there's different answers to that one as well. If you want the best chance of winning the job, then you adjust what you do. A lot or some. Some. I mean, because you can't be a very antriloquist either. You can't pretend to be something you're not, right? Yeah. But you can adjust what you do or highlight certain aspects of what you do to make to make yourself more palatable to committee. However, if one of those orchestras were to not really play in a style that fits you well, do you want that job? Yes, so that's a secondary question. If your goal is winning, then by all means make some adjustments and understand exactly what that orchestra is about. But the other way of thinking about it is, well, I'm going to do what I do and if that resonates great and if it doesn't, that's fine because then I'll find a place where I can. It just depends on how badly you want the job and how, whether it's a professional decision or artistic decision. Right. They're different. And you think auditions are broken just across the board or more with specific orchestras or maybe even specific countries or just an addition is. I think more if definitely more in the US than in Europe because the processes are completely different from country, you know, in Europe than they are in the US. The problem with the US and I would encourage people not to read more into this like this being specific to Philadelphia because I think it's more universal than that. But committees for a lot of reasons, one being that the people on committees tend to be also teachers will look for really correct. And like I call it factual playing, you know, everything perfectly in time and in tune and with a good sound and at the right tempo, whatever that is, whatever that means. But you know, the middle of the road you just go for exactly an average interpretation of everything and play it with super, super technique and those tend to be the players that get passed on, the ones that can close closest to that ideal. And then you reach the finals when the music director is there and they're looking for, sure, they want it to be correct, but they also are looking for something much more. And maybe you haven't passed through the players that offer that. And so the conductor is not happy, the conductor is not happy, no one gets hired, right? Right. The other issue is, you know, having a committee before things start, have a discussion about what they're looking for in a player. If it's a section job, maybe you do want more factual player. You don't need to have as much imagination for a utility job as you would for a principal job. But get a sense of, well, are we looking for a sound that augments or matches a player or that has more brilliance because it's principal or you want something that's richer because it's, you know, fourth drop it or, you know, just have a sense together of what qualities they're looking for. in a player and I think orchestra's in the US tend not to do that. You know I wonder though if you would have a meeting like that if the strings a string player would say that they wanted a certain thing and a brass player or one player might want something fairly different from that. Do you think that could be or? Well that's why you need to have those discussions not in the finals because at that point it's too late. You're going to have no votes and you're going to have a no higher because no one will get enough votes. The difference in Europe however is I think that the general level of musicianship tends to be higher because there's a cultural competency in classical music that we tend not to have in the US. Hmm. Did I just step in something pretty big there? Probably. No. Let me just start a couple of things and see what you think. The person I just interviewed before he was Andreas Neubroner, who's a producer and engineer. He's won eight Grammys and he did the Moller cycle with San Francisco and he's recorded Murray Pariah and people like that. He really knows his stuff and he says American orchestras are just great. He loves American orchestras compared to to German orchestras. Because no take no takes get ruined right? Everybody's so competent that you don't have to go back and cover stuff right? Yeah and he says it's so it's done so professionally and everything whereas in Germany maybe it doesn't and one thing that's always bothered me about Germany is the first round is just the Hyden-Truppek & Certo on a B-flat German trumpet. Which to me doesn't really show what you could do as an orchestral player but that's my own I guess ran. I agree with you. I'm just saying in general the level of understanding of what an orchestra is supposed to sound like is just greater in especially in Germany because it's a greater part of the culture. Yes. We have a neighbor actually he's moved now. Actually he was a professor of philosophy I think. Just a couple of houses up the street who especially loved late Romantic German music and the Basel opera symphony did Frauen Eschaten. This was a number of years ago. In his wife I think went five or six times and so he would ask me about music even though he was this incredibly brilliant man and you just find that a lot more in Europe where the average if you'd say average person really has much more of a connection with music than in the United States. Sure. And I don't know the answer to this you might but how many concerts of the Berlin Phil, how many programs do they do where they're playing back up to a film? Probably none. I know they do some ride zero. Yeah. Whereas in the US, how do we get audiences in now? It's like okay well we'll play Elf at Christmas or Nightmare before Christmas and then we'll do some John Williams scores. Of course the music is great but that's what we do to bring people in versus playcore rap and have the seats filled. It's different. You know that things have really changed if an orchestra plays bad Santa for Christmas. I don't think we're going to see that day. A couple years down the road maybe. Maybe. We might be on the way there. Okay. Well anyway preparation for an audition. What would you tell students in terms of how to prepare like for an audition? Well having said in a lot of committees the greatest number of players self-select out of the first round. Now I was just talking about factual playing and I was sort of denigrating it but you still need to play in time and in tune with a good sound and articulation. And 80% of the players don't. The four things you listed is there one particular area that's especially weak like intonation or rhythm or pitch I think is number one. If it's a section job or a second job low articulation those are huge weaknesses. When Tony Prisk got the job and Philly we had 317 resumes. Wow. Okay. And invited about 165 live and I think in over 100 came first round had we started with a lean or crawl I think and pictures and those were fine. I mean everybody played a decent pictures. Did somebody miss the high A flat? Yeah I'm sure someone did but everybody was pretty good. The two excerpts that got everyone caught who were caught was Carmen because of intonation mostly and the second trumpet part for the last movement of Beethoven 5 because people couldn't go and tongue low season low G's. Especially on the 16th I guess. Yeah well sort of on all of it. I mean why is Beethoven violin concierto second trumpet why is that an excerpt? It's one note. So it's sort of taken care of business and this is the work that students need to be doing you know from day one but especially through college is just getting those basics in play. The excerpts are so much easier than solos but yet we have whole groups of people that just want to play 5 excerpts that's what they practice that's what they want to do. Instead of learning very rapid and stretching themselves with solo repertoire which is going to show you when you're not even across registers and when you're not playing in tune. When you're not playing with good articulation. And over in Europe a lot of enough a lot of students know the excerpt but they don't even know the piece. Well well yeah here well in the US too. One of your favorite blogs one of your favorite blogs is the one where you you talk about doing you know playing the opening of Patruska or the opening of Beethoven 9 first movement and people not knowing. trumpet students not knowing what the piece is. Actually brass students. Brass students it's it's horrific. Yeah or a horn player none of the horn students could identify the beginning of Chekoski 5th the first movement. Yeah so you know balancing the technical approach with study of music is really important. So back to prepping you know people that the students the good students and there's a lot of them have figured out how to play in tune and in time good articulation and good sound. Then you apply that over to the excerpts understand that if you listen to five recordings and four of them have roughly the same tempo don't pick the one that's the fifth. Right. Yeah. Which you know could be the Eastern Slovenian radio orchestra which I'm sure is a fine institution but you know it's like well what did you where did you find that what was a YouTube or Spotify and it's like yeah but there was other ones you could pick. Right. Let me ask you a question about intonation and this is sort of a hypothetical question but I've wondered about this. So if you're in the committee and they ask the corral from academic festival literature and if you're thinking of of just intonation so you have G you know is the pickup and then you have E top part of the staff which is the third of C major and then D which is the fifth of G. If you're playing alone would you play that with tempered intonation and then if you're playing with a section would you play with just intonation or would you play it with just intonation even if you're playing alone to show the committee that you're that you're aware that it's a third and a fifth. Sure. Okay. I got it. No, no, no, no. This is a philosophical question. Yeah. Absolutely. And I know but it's actually a brilliant question. Once again you're proving you're thinking the thinking man. Why did you ever play the trumpet? Well, I know this. That's when I can't get to sleep at night. I guess that's right. There you go. Yeah. And this sounds incredibly geeky but I've had this discussion with Tony Prisk you know when because as a second player he's always thinking about where he is on a chord tone. Bring in the thirds down, bring in fifths up, bring in you know moving and that's why he's such a good second and that's why when we play together it's super easy because he's thinking that way pitch wise. What I encourage students to do is to do half just intonation. Okay. Right. So you're not going to bring that E down 12 cents but maybe you bring it down a nudge. So the question becomes not so much tuning chords but showing the intonation while still melodically it's sounding in tune instead of it thinking purely harmonically. So yeah I would play the E natural a little low and I'd make sure the D is not flat at all. Yes. Right. And making some adjustments but not going full on what you would maybe do in the orchestra. Well if a student is going to the audition and you think they're really well prepared and if they've got the basics down is there anything you tell them about the mental aspect of taking auditions? Yeah. So you have to care less without being careless. So part of it is goal setting and the goal of going to the audition can't be to win it because that's not in your control unless you have the ability to be in two places at once and vote on the committee for yourself. Yeah. Right. So what is in your control? Well to play well. Okay. But that's too vague. So then where do you go from that? Well. you need to set some sort of a attainable goal. And if you think about there being a process of learning how to audition and growing from one audition to another, because face it, most of the time we spend with the instrument is us alone in a room, okay? Small percentage of that we spend in rehearsal or playing for a teacher. And even smaller percentage is playing concerts and the smallest percentage is playing auditions. So we're inexperienced in that in comparison with everything else we do on the instrument, right? - Right. - So if you go in and say, okay, today my goal is intonation. Use that for an example. That's an attainable goal. It's something for you to focus on that keeps you from being overwhelmed by the moment and will actually help you're playing. Maybe it's, oh, I tend to fuzz out in the low register so I wanna make sure that I'm playing Shuman II that I'm good going into low seas. Or if you're playing the second part down to the low G's. It could be something specific like that, but setting attainable goals really helps to eliminate being overwhelmed by the moment. So that's one thing. Another thing is just understand that you need to, what you need to show on each excerpt. And that can be prepared for. So if you go in and think, why is this excerpt so being asked? The corollary to that is of course, then what do I have to show? Sometimes it's easy, you know, like, sheaher is out. Okay. (laughs) I gotta have clean multiple tongues. Okay, cool, great, that's what that one's easy. What about Lennore III? Why is that asked? That's a little harder question because it could be that conductors know it because it's a trumpet place by itself, which is why pictures, smaller five opening of those are all trumpet by itself excerpts, which is sort of interesting in and of itself. But it's for Beethoven style. What does that mean? Do you vibrate on the long notes? Do you, well, for me it comes down to, okay, do you have a sense of what the presence, what the sound of the trumpet needs to be on this? And are you gonna play with good articulation on the low D's and on the B flats? Are you gonna play the arpeggio in tune? You know, it's much, again, a little bit more factual and then coming down to just making the right feel for it, understanding how it fits into the opera, what you want that to sound like. The question about, well, would you play it on a C trumpet, would you play it on a rotary trumpet, would you play it on a B flat trumpet, would you play it on a B flat rotary trumpet? I find that less important unless you're playing an audition for a German orchestra or then you would play it on a rotary trumpet and probably a B flat rotary trumpet. But for an American orchestra, I'm not sure it matters what trumpet you play it on as long as it's super convincing. Well, which mouthpiece sounds better? Oh, shut up. (laughing) Right. And you have students ask questions like that. Well, of course they do. Yeah. You know, I'm sure I did back then too. Like, well, what's the right thing to do? All the right thing to do is to sound good. In part two, Tony and Dave discussed the complexities of technique versus music in both practicing and in performance. Tony asks Dave what his first rehearsal as a new member of the Philadelphia orchestra was like and what it was like to play under Wolfgang Svalis. They get into another aspect of his career, teaching and the difference between teaching at Curtis and Northwestern. After a couple of mislini's questions, including some tennis talk, they conclude by talking about the text of the music and how specific to that text a musician should be. To hear the second portion of Tony and Dave's conversation, please consider becoming a contributing listener by clicking on the big blue button on the podcast website to start a free trial. You can also go directly to Anthony Plogue, dash on dash music dot supercast dot com. As a contributor, you'll be able to listen in to additional audio content and study upon Tony's podcast reflections where he does a recap of his interviews focusing on suggestions for students. He'll also have access to our Discord server where you can join an ongoing conversation while meeting and sharing ideas with other listeners. Thank you for listening in and please be sure to help us spread the word. ♪ You're the next time we're home ♪ ♪ There's a room in the room ♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]