Euphonium.com

A Return to Colorado with the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra.

Wow March is the month of heading back to places I have been many years ago between Colorado and the UK and then Peru at the end of the month. I was fortunate to have won the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition 10 years ago with the Cosma Concerto. I remember them calling me because the euphonium wasn’t actually an orchestral instrument and they were not sure if they would listen to my tape in the preliminary round. I asked them just to listen to the tape and if it was not good enough, then no problems, but that the euphonium was WORTH them allowing in the competition. They passed me through and I made it past the audition round to the finals with the Fort Collins SO. I played against a violinist from Juilliard playing the Sibelius Concerto and a violist from Curtis playing the Bruch…and then a euphonium playing who…Cosma. I think the audience really appreciated the “newness” of the euphonium.

Well I was really happy that the new music director of the FCSO is a “reformed” trombone player who knows conductors the Colorado State Univ. Orchestra and the FCSO. He was enthused to have me back in celebration of “Where are they now?” and we decided to feature the Concerto for Euphonium by Allen Feinstein. This was a really neat aspect because a) the work is only 6 years old, and b) it was written for me, and c) it is a great piece of music that really conveys the instrument well. The orchestra enjoyed playing the piece and most importantly the audience really enjoyed it as well. I know it was a positive step for the euphonium to play with a symphony orchestra and I can honestly say that I have performed as soloist at Lincoln Center twice…Lincoln Center in Fort Collins Colorado (BTW there is a Carnegie Hall in Virginia if I remember correctly…a really neat play on words I believe).

Of course on the great aspects was to see so many of my old friends. I still remember my host family from the first trip, Dave and Amy Rosenberg. They were great hosts and lots of laughs and fun…just like last time. My thanks to them and their wonderful dog Winston who is so entertaining!! I also had the chance to work with some of the great students at Colorado State University and teach Bob Brewer. Always wonderful to work with enthused students that make great efforts to excel!!

Well, I do like to have fun on my travels, so Janet, my wife, joined me on this trip and we spent 2 days skiing in Winter Park, Colorado AFTER the concerts. I would not want to hurt anything before a big concert. We had a little place near the slopes. We had near perfect weather since it was snowing both days…we got around 16” of snow over the 2 days we were there. Amazing fresh powder and the mountain was not crowded at all. The funniest thing happened while I was up snowboarding on the top of the mountain by myself. I had not seen anyone for about 5-10 minutes and was enjoying the moving through the trees and the scenery when all of a sudden another snowboarder and two skiers came out of the trees. I was a little surprised and as luck would have it, I hit a little jump and was not paying attention, so I had a nice whip out!! I laid there and laughed. It was a great little vacation and rush to ski and snowboard the mountain. Off to practice a new concerto and brass band repertoire…until next time…