OperaNews: The Glory Of Scandinavia
The May issue of OperaNews, the magazine published by the Metropolitan Opera in NYC, is devoted to Scandinavian opera. There are some very interesting articles, one with the new artistic director of the Stockholm Royal Opera, Birgitta Svendén, another about the old court theater at the Drottningholm Castle, and much more. Check out their web-site www.operanews.com. There you can also hear sound-clips of Scandinavian Wagner singers from the 30′s.
If you look in the April issue online there’s an interview with André Previn about his new opera “Brief Encounter”, world-premiere will be at the Houston Grand Opera in a couple of weeks. We just started rehearsing last week, and haven’t heard it with the singers yet, and they are constantly changing the orchestra parts between rehearsals. I guess mr. Previn are still finding things he wants to improve! From what I can tell so far, the music is very accessible and melodic. It sounds a bit like movie-music, which make sense because it’s based on an old movie. What cracked me up when I read the interview with mr. Previn was that this story was suggested to him by his fifth wife, (now divorced) Anne-Sophie Mutter! For being eighty years old, he’s getting around!
Big birthday
Today is William Shakespeare’s 445th birthday, which leads me to one of my greatest musical joys recently. I have been fortunate to play two productions at the Houston Grand Opera within the last year together with my oldest son, Jakob. The first one was Puccini’s La Bohème in May of 2008 and the second one was, you guessed it, Benjamin Britten’s beutiful opera based on Shakesepare’s A Midsummernight’s Dream in January and February of 2009. Jakob has been in the children’s chorus for these two shows, and it’s been great fun for both of us.
Initially he didn’t want to have anything to do with opera, but when Jakob realized you actually get paid a little bit, he was ready to go to the audition. After the first rehearsal he was like a transformed kid, Puccini was the greatest composer ever, all the grown-up singers were the coolest guys he’d ever met, and he just couldn’t get enough! One big part was that they don’t treat the kids like little kids, they’re just as important (especially in Britten) as the rest of the cast, and they’re expected to live up to that responsibility, which they do.
I heard somewhere that Shakespeare actually had to make up about ten percent of the words he used in his plays, pretty amazing, so here’s to the Bard!
Mozart, Verdi, Mustang vs. Porsche
We played the Mozart Requiem Thursday night at St Michael’s Catholic Church in Sugarland, TX. It’s a beautiful church, and it was pretty much packed. Mike Warny sounded great on the Tuba Mirum, Rick Reeves played his nice old Conn 71H basstrombone, and I squeeked out a few notes on my Jin Bao alto, that’s the HGO bone section.
Last night we had opening night for HGO’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, great show. The storm in the third act came live to Houston just in time to soak everybody getting out of the theater after the show. Very timely!
Houston Symphony trumpeter and TOOT! leader Bob Walp has always had a good taste in cars, driving vintage BMWs and the likes. He recently got an early Porsche Boxster, and after the Mozart rehearsal Wednesday night we couldn’t resist a little friendly drag-racing on the tree-lined boulevards of Sugarland. I have my old -96 Mustang GT convertible automatic with 116 000 miles, and believe or not, I beat him two out of three! The second time I hit it too hard and was just spinning, but when I got grip the mighty Mustang actually beat the Porsche! Go, Detroit! Of course, the Porsche handles amazingly well, and does have that thing called build quality!
Keep swinging!
Rigoletto dress, some good jazz
Last night we had the dress rehearsal for HGO’s new production of Rigoletto, opening night is Friday 4/17. Scott Hendricks sings Rigoletto, Albina Shagimuratova is Gilda and Eric Cutler plays the Duke. Amazing singers all three of them, I’m always blown away by what it takes to do what they can do. Just being able to sing over a seventy-piece orchestra with no amplification, talk about breath-control and technique!
Tonight we’re having the rehearsal for the Mozart Requiem, so I’ll drag out my $160 Chinese alto trombone. Mike Warney plays tenor and Rick Reeves basstrombone, the HGO trombone section.
If you want to hear great jazz, come to River Oaks Baptist Church Sunday night 4/19 at 6 pm. New Orleans native and piano-great Matt Lemmler has put together a program about the history of jazz, with a kicking band doing the playing. Gary Welden on trumpet, Warren Sneed sax and clarinet, yours truly on trombone together with a swinging rhythm section. Should be loads of fun!
Rigoletto 2009
We had our third orchestra reading for Verdi’s Rigoletto today with the HGO orchestra, Patrick Summers conducting. Tomorrow night we’re having the sitz-probe, which means we get to meet and hear the singers for the first time. It’s one of the all-time great operas. I especially like the opening, it’s me and the trumpet, HGO Principal trumpet Jim Vassallo. The rest of the brass joins us in the second bar with low, dark chords, setting the stage for the dramatic story. Opening night is Friday April 17, 2009.
Playing for “The Rat Pack”
In the middle of March I’ve been hired to play in the orchestra for the traveling Broadway show “The Rat Pack”, featuring the great tunes from Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Maybe there is still hope for live music, when the companies will hire a full big band! Keep swinging!
A big trombone day here in Houston
February 10 was a big trombone day here in Houston when Bonetown, Michael Davis and Bill Reichenbach, came and had a clinic and a concert. Those guys can play! We had a really kicking local rhythm section, and I had the good fortune of being part of the second half of the program, when we played some of Michael’s and Bill’s tunes for larger ensembles. Good Fun!
Now I’ve finally felt it, the pressure of playing 1st trombone in the famous chorale in Brahms’ first symphony! I played it with the Houston Symphony a couple of weeks ago, last time I played was years ago in Sweden, and then I was playing bass trombone.
This was a little bit more challenging, but what a great piece of music! Right now we’re in the middle of “Gershwin Glam” with the Houston Ballet, a ballet set to George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F.
The end of “The Magic Flute”
A little update on what’s going on in my musical life.
We finished Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” with the Houston Grand Opera early February. It was a blast playing it, with a great cast and a really fine conductor, Steven Sloan. It was a little unnerving though with all the exposed soft playing for the trombones!
A few other things from Fall 2007
The ballet starts the Nutcracker at Thanksgiving, going all the way to New Year’s. That’s a lot of shows; I and John McCroskey split it in half, which was a really good thing! Still, it’s a fun show to play, and I really enjoy playing with the other guys in the section, Mike Warny and Rick Reeves.
I still do my regular Sunday jazz brunch with the guitarist Mike Nase, and also play at the Lakewood church most Wednesday nights. Need to keep up my jazz chops!
Down in Mexico
In early November nine of us from the HGO orchestra went down to Mazatlan in Mexico to play the Sleeping Beauty, Tjaikovskij’s ballet. It was for the Festival Cultural Mazatlan, and the orchestra consisted of both musicians from Mexico and the US.
We had a great time, and it got even better after I got over the food poisoning!
The big event of the fall
For me the big event in the fall was the Salvation Army Brass Spectacular late October. This was the most fun I’ve had in years!
Jamie Hood put everything together, hired all the top professionals brass players in Houston, flew in a few guys from the New York Staff Band, had both Steven Bulla and William Himes come, and to top it all, invite Steven Mead to be the euphonium soloist!
The band sounded spectacular, and we played classics I’ve haven’t played in years, like Call of the Righteous, Celebration, Song of the Brother, the Red Shield. The trombone section was made up of me, Rick White, John McCroskey and David Waters, the latter two of the Houston Symphony.
Obviously, a lot of the guys had never played British-style brass band before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen these seasoned pros been this enthusiastic before! Definitely the highlight of the fall!
Rain at Kemah Jazz Festival
Late September is the time for the Kemah Jazz Festival here in Houston. I played the Friday night show with the Musician’s Union Big Band and guest soloist David Fathead Newman. Then it started raining…I was supposed to play with three different bands on Saturday; nothing!
Time for an update for Fall 2007
It’s time for an update of my musical activities in the fall of 2007. The main thing in the fall has been playing principal trombone with the Houston Grand Opera, and sharing the principal spot at the Houston Ballet with John McCroskey, formerly of the Houston Symphony.
We started the season with the ballet The Merry Widow, Franz Lehar’s classic operetta, and this time without the singers. It was a fun show, lots of playing; my big solo was to depict the drunken Count for two bars!
The opera season started with The Masked Ball by Verdi. This was especially interesting for me since the story was based on an actual event in Sweden. King Gustav III was shot at a masked ball at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm March 16, 1792. He survived, but finally died thirteen days later at the age of forty six. By the way, Sweden under King Gustav III was the first country in Europe after Great Britain to acknowledge the United States of America as a sovereign nation in April of 1783. Enough history for now!
Teaching at music camps this summer
After coming back to Houston, I’ve been hanging out with my kids a lot, going to the pool almost every day. The last week of June, I was on the jazz faculty for the American Festival for the Arts. AFA is a high-school camp that goes over several weeks. It’s mostly orchestral, but they have one week of jazz each year.
We had lots of fun, great kids and a killer faculty under the direction of sax-player Warren Sneed. The rest of the faculty was Pamela York piano, Dennis Dotson trumpet, Woody Witt sax, Mike Wheeler guitar, David Craig bass and Sebastian Whittaker drums. That’s the kind of camp I wanted to go to as a kid! We ended the week with a concert in Zilka Hall at the Hobby Center. The bands were kicking, and we had a blast.
I also taught trombone master classes at the Austin High School in Sugarland for one week in August. The kids were great, very appreciative, and we had a good time doing both fundamentals, classical and jazz playing. On August 22 we had a concert/live CD recording at the Lakewood church with Israel Houghton, Cindy Cruse, the band and the choir. It should be a kicking gospel album, to be released in November together with the new book by Joel Osteen.
The Houston Ballet season starts with rehearsals late August. I’m also playing a jazz concert September 2 with Barrie Lee Hall, great trumpet player and musical director of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
That’s it for now, more to follow.
Auditioning for the Swedish Radio Symphony
In April I started to get ready for the co-principal audition for the Swedish Radio Symphony in Stockholm. I took lessons with David Waters and John McCroskey of the Houston Symphony, and Mike Warney of the HGO and Houston Ballet. I tried to record myself most days, some I thought sounded pretty decent, other days were not that good!
The whole Hultén family left for Sweden on May 26, and we had three wonderful weeks with my and Tina’s families.
May 31 I went to the Berwald Hall in Stockholm and played the audition list for Göran Brink, 2nd trombone of the Swedish Radio Symphony and my first trombone teacher in high school, and Mikael Oskarsson, principal trombone. I haven’t met these guys for probably 15 years, great to see them again. It was also a little nerve-wrecking playing for my first teacher!
They gave me some good comments for the upcoming audition, a week later. There were maybe 30 players showing up for the audition, with a few continental Europeans and one American (not counting myself). It was great to see some of my old friends I haven’t met in years.
The first round was the David trombone concertino 1st mvt including cadenza. I think I played pretty good, but not my best, I made a couple of stupid little mistakes. After lunch they announced who advanced, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I was one of the five to the second round.
The second round was the David 2nd mvt, Tuba Mirum, Bolero and Mahler Third. This round felt really comfortable, and I took my time between the excerpts, trying not to rush things. More discussions by the jury, and they decided to advance Mikael Oskarsson of the Royal Stockholm Opera and myself to the finals. This was played with the section, with no screen (for natural reasons!).
We started by doing the tenor parts, Brahms’s 4th, Nielsen’s 2nd, Tjaikovskij’s 6th and Bruckner’s 4th symphonies. I switched between 1st and 2nd trombone. After a short break we played alto, Mozart Requiem and Schuman’s 3rd.
After what felt like an eternity they announced that they wanted Mikael to play the fall with them as a trial period. I thought that was an excellent decision from the jury! Mikael is a really fine player, and a great guy, and I’m not sure I’m ready to make such a big move yet, especially considering that my wife Tina loves her position at Baylor College of Medicine.
So overall this audition was a very good experience.
Travel for concert with Joel Osteen
May 18 I went to Nashville with the Lakewood Church band for an event called “An evening with Joel Osteen”. 17 000 people came to the arena to hear Joel speak, and Israel Houghton and Cindy Cruse were the featured singers. Since then, I’ve been playing some Wednesday night services at the Lakewood Church, but I’m still doing my regular Saturday night 6 pm service at the Second Baptist church, and the Sunday jazz brunch at the Mariott Westchase Hotel, with guitar player Mike Nase and bassist Steve Brown.
Aida and the Cunning Little Vixen
In April and May I played principal trombone for the Houston Grand Opera productions of Verdi’s Aida and the Cunning Little Vixen by Leos Janaçek. We had a total of 27 brasses in Aida, counting herald trumpets, off-stage brass and the pit brass section. Check out the pictures. How the singers can be heard, with no mikes, over all that noise is a total mystery to me! The Cunning Little Vixen has a very intricate score, lots of tempo- and meter changes. There are some absolutely beautiful sections, and the HGO Orchestra sounded great under the direction of maestro Patrick Summers.
I also played a couple of family concerts with the Houston Symphony, and recorded a demo of Ned Battista’s ballet “Kansas City” with the American Pops under the direction of the composer.
Shows I played in Feb. and March
It’s been and exciting spring and summer 2007.
February was spent at the Hobby Center, where I played the musical “Swing”. Loads of fun, with a swinging band under the direction of Sam Kriger from LA. The most exposed part for me was “Cry me a river”, where I go out on stage playing opposite a gorgeous singer, complete with pixiemute and choreography!
Allen Vizutti came to town for two concerts March 5 and 6. Paragon Brass, where I’m a member, opened the second one with 40 minutes of chamber music before Allen came out and showed us how to really play the trumpet!