Summer camp 1978

Trumpet Lessons & Current Performances

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update on some upcoming performances in May and an updated link you can check for information on trumpet lessons.

My website is still in progress, but the basics are up at:

http://www.digitalchimney.com

Click on the 1st link (info about lessons, and there you go!)

As for performances, here's what I have for now:

May

Saturday 5/9/09

Mahler's 5th Symphony with the San Bernardino Symphony

Saturday 5/16/09

Legends of American Film Music with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra

Sunday 5/17/09

Claremont Winds Concert in Baldwin Park

Saturday 5/30/09

Mozart & Mahler's 5th Symphony (again, hey why not) with the Long Beach Symphony

B Positive!

I can't say how happy I am about some things on the horizon - and how that impacts my daily outlook. Just around the bend is the ever-elusive spring break and Ali and I have plans equivalent of amazing comfort food. We'll be warming up by driving to Marin for some camping and hiking at Mt. Tam State Park, and to have a drink at Nature's friend with the ancient Miwoks. After getting thoroughly dirty and drunk (what says Marin county more than that!), we'll be staying in the city at a fancy pants hotel in Pacific Heights to grab a shower and stroll the Presidio. Also hoping to hit Suppenkuche, drink some great wine at Delfina (it was here I first drank the glory of Greenwood Ridge), eat a morning bun at Tartine, maybe hear the Symphony, and if Berkeley is in the cards on the way out of town, snag a Topdog real quick. Basically a greatest hits record for me. San Francisco still provides everything I want out of a city: easy access to natural beauty, food, drink, and music - all at the highest level.

Driving back down the coast we'll be stopping for a few nights in the Los Olivos/Santa Ynez area for some tasting and general merriment. On the list are: Foxen, Kalyra, Gainey, the Los Olivos Cafe, and possibly repeat visits to Babcock and Beckman. I salivate thinking of these days....

And now for a small segment I'll call "Wine Tonight":

I'm drinking a Parducci Sustainable Red which I can't complain about, but I had a bottle really hit me hard this week:

Chalone Vineyards Syrah

Deeeeeeeeeep flavor. Please enjoy this wine responsibly, as you may drink the whole damn bottle!

Before you go, some bomb-ass Fela...

   

April Showers

As March comes to a close, I finally have a slow week to reflect on the massive showering of great news happening right now. Mike and Abby's wonderful baby Elijah was born, Ali's 30th bday was a blast and our engagement is so exciting, little Liz turned 29, Ali survived her first trial-by-high-school-music-festival, and my 4th Recital was great fun. All fantastic successes that I'm so happy about. 

After going strong for the last weeks, it's great to finally stay up late listening to Miles, drink some whole foods bordeaux and regroup.

A few things coming up on the performance calendar:

April

Sunday 4/5/09

Choir Cantata by Lloyd Larsen at Good Shepherd Lutheran in Irvine

May

Saturday 5/9/09

Mahler's 5th Symphony with the San Bernardino Symphony

Sunday 5/17/09

Claremont Winds Concert in Baldwin Park

(((((before you go...Arvo Part)))))

Trumpet Ensemble

The first rehearsal of the full boar trumpet ensemble was tonight. I foresee something fun with this group, perhaps a once a month reading session?

A Funny Thing

Take your friends, take your grandma, take anyone who might have nothing to do this coming Thursday/Friday/Saturday evening (or matinee on Saturday):

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

I'm playing in the pit at Saddleback College...

A German Holiday

This past weekend had a cultural theme: Germany. Germany has always been of special interest to me, largely because of it's musical/historical significance. In college I tried to pursue German culture beyond what I knew (or was learning) of it musically, and was in heaven. I took a history course as well as a romantic literature course. The history professor was a beautiful old German man and we shared a love of Robert Schumann. My TA for the literature course was known as the creepy TA among friends and was creepy for 3 simple reasons: 

1) pale, lonely, black trench coat wearing graduate student 

2) office in the basement of the library (which rumor had it was sinking, thus making him even creepier day by day) 

3) he confessed to me once that the only music he could listen to was that of Scriabin.

I digress. 

German culture has been on my mind lately, largely due to the book I'm reading, "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross. Anyone with a passing interest in 20th century music should read this book as it's truly fascinating. Additionally, with Wagner's Ring Cycle being staged in LA and an exhibit at the LACMA about Berlin during the Cold War I feel like Germany has been calling my name non-German name. Alison and I therefore decided it was time to jumped in the Rhine.

The photo with all the street lamps above actually has nothing to with Germany (although does it not seem vaguely German?). It's an installation piece called "Urban Light" on Wilshire, right in front of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. It made me happy, unlike the literally gridlocked-all-day traffic 20 feet to the left of the photo. 

Following "Art of Two Germanys - Cold War Cultures" we dined at Wurstkucke (LA's equivalent of Suppenkucke), hence the sausage picture. If you check out the menu online, you can see this place offers "exotic" sausage: alligator, buffalo, duck, snake, rabbit, etc.

Exotic sausages, fine beer, Belgian fries - what more could you want? Our answer to that, oddly, was drinking Sapporo and singing karoke at a hotel in Little Tokyo.

But back on the train to the Rhineland we got as Sunday, we went to see the Reader.  I love Kate Winslet so much, and I'm so glad she won the Oscar. Of all the actresses out there, truly deserving an Oscar, I was actually happy to see Penelope Cruz and Kate win. And what an amazing film - beautiful, heart breaking, and a good score. 

The synchronicity of reading Ross's book, the exhibit at LACMA (seriously, some of the images at that exhibit seemed to appear in the movie), the delicious sausage - and well, I don't know how karoke ties in, but thus ends our German Holiday.

Coming Soon to a Concert Hall Near YOU

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm playing with the Pacific Symphony next week for their upcoming "Classics" concert. The music is billed as "Hollywood's Golden Age", and includes three of the old masters (Bernard Hermann, Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa), as well as a world premiere by James Newton Howard (who has scored a very long list of films, but notably Pretty Woman, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Michael Clayton, and Defiance). His premiere piece is called "I Would Plant a Tree" and is scored for 8 trumpets, which is why I'll be there!

Performances:

February 26th, 2009 at 8:00pm
February 27th, 2009 at 8:00pm
February 28th, 2009 at 8:00pm

Venue:

Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

Shredding

Herbert steps into Photobooth