My initial reflection on my time here has been that the people seem to be generally happy and less stressed than in the US.  The overall pace is slower and gentler.  There are definitely restrictions and censorship; like the city billboards are nothing like billboards in our large cities and hotel movie channels eliminated all swearing or any nudity.  Also, the three students that were assigned to us were not dating, nor ever had dated.  A couple of us were giving Jason a hard time at our last dinner and he was genuinely embarrassed about the prospect of a girlfriend.

Another observation was that after a week I was one of only about a dozen non-Chinese people I saw; except when I was at the Great Wall.  That, being a tourist destination, was very cosmopolitan.  It was surprising to me that a city as big as Beijing was so mono-cultural.

I’m writing this at the airport where I just learned I have a 3-hour delay due to fog.  This will make me miss my connecting flight home so I’ll be staying overnight in Chicago and getting home about 12 hours later than planned.  All in all, this was a fantastic experience and would go back to China at any opportunity.

After a very nice lunch in a country inn we went shopping for silk and tea.  The silk place was very near the Olympic Village and was very interesting in that they showed how the process is done and different grades of silk.  However, this was not the place to buy it.  Luckily our student let me know this was priced for tourists and let me know where the deals are.  I’ll hit those places tomorrow.  He did take us to a place to buy tea that is somehow connected to his family.  This was a small store down an alley in a part of town I would have never found, nor thought to go shopping.  We sat at a long table and sampled half a dozen teas all of the same variety, just different grades of quality.  After a while Marty and I became overwhelmed by the day and frankly I was thinking more about at beer at this point, rather than tea, so I told my host to take 200RPG (about $25) and give me a sampling of whatever he thinks best.  So I’ll find out when I get home what I got from my tea tasting.  Unfortunately, my phone ran out of juice at the Wall so I couldn’t get any shots of this very “real” part of town.  Marty did and perhaps I’ll get them from him and upload them at some point.

First we went through some warm-up concepts together as a class.  Then I talked about putting music into different categories in order to help you focus on intent and be more efficient in your practice.  The categories I discussed were solo literature, etudes, orchestral excerpts and jazz.  I practice each area with a slightly different mindset and have different goals in mind.  Then I played a mini-recital for them consisting of:

All of the master classes have accompanists and the one assigned to our trumpet studio was very good.  We didn’t rehearse the Hummel or Kennan at all and it all came off just fine.  (She did not play for the jazz stuff.)  When I talked about the differences between jazz and the other styles I had played they were at a loss to describe what they thought jazz was.  Apparently there is no direct translation for the word “improvisation”.  The whole concept of improvisation was completely foreign to them.

After my presentation I listened to 6 students play.  One of the students was preparing for a competition led by the great Finnish trumpet star Jouko Harrianne, in Helsinki.  He was playing a piece that was composed for that competition.  He was the strongest player of the day.  The “weakest” player was still extremely good technically.  Again, I spent a lot of time with all of them trying to get them to play the music that is not on the page – express something.  I had one of them do a little game of playing a phrase like a bird, then an elephant, then an emperor.  For another student I gave the audience three choices; happy, sad, mad.  Then I whispered one of the choices to the student and the audience had to guess which emotion he was playing.  He was surprisingly bad at this because in order to achieve one of the emotions he would have to play dynamics or articulations that were not there and they were reluctant to do this.

The evening concert featured the phenomenal Italian saxophonist, Marco Albenetti.  The first half of the program was tango music by Astor Piazzola and the second half of the program consisted of a suite he commissioned from Wisconsin’s very own Fred Sturm.  This was a work Fred originally wrote for a project for Bobby McFerrin and jazz orchestra consisting of folk tunes from 10 different countries.  Marco had Fred arrange this for saxophone, string quintet and percussion.

The shots below are of the high school trumpet studio, their teacher and the music school building.

After lunch, Marty Erickson and I took a walk to the Forbidden City and then across the street from that is Tiananmen Square.  On this same road is the Beijing Concert Hall where the orchestra concerts are held and the brand new Opera Hall.  It’s hard to take in the scope of how large this opera hall is by my phone-photo but there are easily a couple of football fields inside this thing.  The city of Beijing has 8 symphony orchestras and 4 of them are full-time.  The principal trumpets from the opera orchestra and Beijing National Symphony were at my concert on Tuesday.  One was from London and the other from Vienna.  This is interesting because as I have walked around I do not feel that Beijing is nearly as cosmopolitan a city as Chicago, New York or even my home, Madison.  I would say that I have seen maybe a dozen westerners since I’ve been here.  It is also intriguing that a city of this size feels very quaint or innocent somehow.  The general pace of things is slower and more relaxed than most big towns in the US.

This evening’s concert was percussion night and I played a few things with Dane Richeson on his recital.  We played a couple movements from Jim Stephenson’s Vignettes and a beautiful tune by Emmanuel Sejourne called Katamiya.  (trumpet/marimba)  This was a slightly smaller audience than the other nights with about 200 people in attendance.  Dane is here this week primarily to teach African and Latin percussion to these students.  He is a master at this and I am sure the students are getting a lot from him however, I think it’s a shame that he cannot work with them on drumset or jazz style.  They have no jazz program in place here at all so there is no equipment for him.  That afternoon he worked with the CCOM percussion studio on an African piece that involved all 20 students with dance and singing.  This was a huge success and a great way to end his program.  Dane is the percussion professor at the Lawrence Conservatory in Appleton, Wisconsin – where I received my undergraduate degree.  His recitals were always the events that no students wanted to miss.  This night was no exception.

A friend from home who has been to Beijing a few times told me there were three things I must do while here; have the Beijing Duck, see the Great Wall and have Hot Pot.  Tuesday was the duck, Friday will be the Wall and tonight was HOT POT!  All I have to say is the Wall must be pretty Great in order to live up to the standard of getting on this top three list.  The table is built around a clay pot or cauldron.  There is a whole goose with broth boiling away in the pot when you arrive.  Then the staff brings plate after plate of different kinds of mushrooms to put in the pot.  There are a few different sauces to use as condiments but it really doesn’t need anything.  Eventually the goose completely falls apart and the resulting mushroom/goose soup is like nothing I’ve ever had!  I think I wrote in my first post on China that I was afraid I might lose weight on this trip…wow, was I wrong…

After that some much needed downtime till the concert.  The first portion of the program was by tuba great, Marty Erickson.  He plays with amazing control and confidence.  It also seems that he never actually gets tired!

My program was:

“Tromba Sola” Ketil Hvoslef.  I reviewed this piece here on ATT.  The sound clip is from a different performance.

“Sonata for Trumpet and Piano” John Stevens.  This was my first time with this sonata.  There are a couple of tricky spots to put together with piano and a lot of technical patterns on the trumpet that need to be carefully worked out.  That all said, I really like this piece and know I will be doing it often.

“Vignettes” James Stephenson – with percussionist Dane Richeson.  I love this piece and it is always a hit with the audience.  All 7 movements have completely different color pallets (and instrumentation).

“Body and Soul” –unaccompanied

“St. Thomas” – ­with Dane Richeson and Marty Erickson

After the concert we all took a long walk through what I would think is “real” China and found this little restaurant.  When we arrived they had closed.  Our host, Fan Lei called up the chef and he came back to work with some wait staff!  We had the place all to ourselves and had at least 12 different dishes.  This time EVERY ONE was outstanding.  But, my hands down favorite was the Peking Duck, a specialty of Beijing.

Tomorrow I play on Dane Richeson’s concert which will be primarily jazz but we will be doing a couple movements of the Stephenson Vignettes again.  Oh yeah, and then will all go out to eat.

The studio and practice room building of CCOM.

The view from my 15th floor practice room.

After breakfast, I gave a 2 1/2 hour master class to one of the three university trumpet studios.  There were about 25 of them and after I talked a little about music in the states and general warm up ideas, I worked with four of them.  One of them played a French turn of the century piece I had never heard of, another played Jolivet, another played the Bitsch Variations and another decided to take his master class opportunity and sight read in front of me.  He played the 2^nd Charlier etude.  All of the students in this particular studio “live” out of the Clark Technical Exercises book.  It clearly showed as all of these students that I heard had absolutely stunning technique.  Astounding, really.  They all had very efficient tones, great breathing and posture, poise and were very relaxed and respectful.  However, none of them were very musical.  There were no taking chances, going out on a limb to be expressive or general nuance.  I was surprised because the technical aspect of their playing was so advanced.  I don’t know if the lack of musical sophistication was just an age thing or perhaps cultural.  Anyway, I do another class on Thursday, perhaps I’ll be able to form a better opinion after that.

Following another very fun rehearsal with my pianist, I went to the evening concert which consisted of the festival host, Fan Lei (clarinetist) playing with The Muir String Quartet from Boston.  Absolutely wonderful, expressive beautiful playing all around.  Fan Lei’s playing should be an example to the studio I worked with.  This guy, “the Big Dog” plays with so much expression, it’s absolutely captivating.

I arrived yesterday evening around 5pm China-time after about 16 hours of travel.  I was greeted at the airport by two very enthusiastic trumpet students from the conservatory and they took me to my hotel.  Like good trumpet colleagues, we all now know what trumpets we own and what size mouthpieces we play.  (Yamaha and Stomvi are big here.)  One of the students whistled trumpet excerpts the whole trip from the airport to the hotel.  He asked me about the repertoire I was going to play for my solo recital by saying, “Are you play this?… [whistle excerpt of Halsey Stevens Sonata].  Are you play this?…[whistle excerpt of Haydn concerto].”  Unfortunately he didn’t know the tunes I have picked for my program, nor could I whistle them to him.  I can hardly play them myself yet!   I think I am playing my first program on Day 3 and I’ll go into more detail about the repertoire then.

I bought a quad case built by Raw Brass for the trip as the different programs I’ll be playing require I bring 4 horns.  The cases I had would work as carry-ons but I didn’t want to use both my carry-on allowances on horns.  I’m really happy with the new case and it seemed to have gone through some abuse by the looks of the exterior!

The hotel is within walking distance of the school and is in the heart of the financial/shopping district of Beijing.  While I arrived last night, I just collapsed in my room so I am counting today, Sunday, as day 1.

This is an indoor market in the financial district of Beijing.

A town square right outside my hotel.

I spent late morning walking around the shopping district.  It is very cold here and while the streets and venues are neat and clean, there seems to be a lot of air pollution.  Lots of people are even wearing face masks.  I think I am going to keep my running/exercising confined to the hotel treadmill.  Eating is going to be an adventure all its own here.  Extremely exotic dishes abound; lots of shark fin, eel, salamander and this thing called sea cucumber that looks like a giant slug with spikes on its’ back.  I can’t tell if it is an animal or plant but it looks like something I’m not initially interested in trying.  I always thought of myself as an open-minded, adventurous eater and love the ethnic restaurants in the States, however, I can see his week is really going to challenge me…

Breakfast, Day 1.

I had my first rehearsal this evening and the pianist and I set about learning the John Stevens Sonata.  It is a new piece to me and I was a little worried to try to put a work this difficult together on one or two rehearsals with an unknown accompanist.  Not to worry, the pianist is fantastic and I think this will be a lot of fun.  After my rehearsal I went to the first concert of the Festival which was the Verdehr Trio (Walter Verdehr – violin, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr – clarinet and Silvia Roederer – piano).  This group is out of Michigan and has been together 40 years and has commissioned over 200 new works!  The host of the festival Fan Lei treated us all to a wonderful meal after the concert and I had my first braised pigeon.  There must have been 10 or 12 dishes passed and I’d say I would order 80% of it again if I could ever identify it.

Until tomorrow.

His clinic at the Wisconsin Music Teacher’s Association Convention was fantastic.  He basically walked us through his life as a musician and how he started out in drum corps but pretty-much self-taught.  As he developed he found profound and lasting influences through key teachers.  As he talked about different stages of his development he would play examples.  His sound is huge!  Had I not been able to see his fingers, I would never have guessed he was playing high E’s, A’s or double C’s.  He is not just a high-note machine, though.  His sound is very flexible, expressive and lyrical – in all ranges of the horn.

The thing that I came away with in Wayne’s talk was something that I also believe and “push” on my students.  That is, while air is important for range and sound, the aperture is the key to controlling air speed and response.  When one moves a lot of air through the lips they are bound to “blow apart” and open up.  This can be okay when playing high or loud but makes soft or delicate entrances impossible.  Focusing in on controlling how open or closed your aperture is, will give you much more confidence and control with pianissimo passages.

I plan on researching and writing more extensively on this topic so please stay tuned.

But for now, visit Wayne Bergeron’s website, and become a fan.  He is truly one of the great players of our day.

Biographical Info

David Sampson is a trumpet player, teacher and composer living in New Jersey. He has made considerable contributions to 20th and 21st Century trumpet literature by composing more than fifteen works featuring the trumpet as well as works for wind ensemble, brass ensembles of various instrumentation and choirs. Further biographical information on David Sampson can be found here.

Suggested Equipment

Bb trumpet is suggested by the composer.
For the clips included here I used an Eclipse Bb trumpet.

Sampson 1 Krems

Sampson 2 Richmond

Sampson 3 Delaware

Practice/Performance Tips

Notes from Faraway Places is a wonderful book of music by David Sampson.  It contains 3 suites for solo trumpet, each containing 3 movements.  It also contains a suite of duets that also contain 3 movements.  That’s 12 Sampson works for trumpet in all!  It is all fantastic stuff and has found it’s way into my daily practice routine.  I bought my copy through Editions Bim, and you should too!

“Like many trumpet players, I am always looking for new material to practice and perform. There exists a plethora of challenging and musically satisfying solos and etudes from various musical eras, but when I decided to add to our repertoire, the longer, more substantial concert etude attracted me most.
Using extended traditional techniques, these suites are works intended for public performance and require a lyrical, expressive approach throughout.
The “Notes from Faraway Places” were written between 1992-99. Each etude is labeled with the city or area in which it was composed. Two exceptions: Suite 3, Etude 2, “The Crow’s Nest”, is the name of my music studio in Morristown, New Jersey; Suite 3, Etude 3 “Solo”, is a piece for solo flugelhorn that appeared in the International Trumpet Guild Journal in 1992. (Note: I reviewed Solo here.)
The suites call for Bb and Eb Trumpets along with flugelhorn. The duets at the end of each suite use ideas from at least one of the etudes within the suite and as a result, constitute in each case a coda.”
-David Sampson

Suggested Recordings

As of this posting, I know of no commercially available recordings of this work.

Today starts my summer playing schedule and for the next month and a half, it’s going to be a very busy one. The last few months I have been slowly driving myself crazy switching mouthpieces. I was juggling about six and (obviously) not completely thrilled with any of them. I think the reason I wasn’t happy with any one mouthpiece was because I was changing too often and not settling in to any one piece. Well, whatever the case, I have sold all my options except one I am going to use for my Bb and one for my C. I’ll use one of those for Eb if that need arises and leave my pic stuff alone. Selling my collection might prove to have been a mistake but I needed to get the “temptations” out of the house.

So if anyone is interested, I settled on playing an old pair of Monette 2′s I bought from my buddy, Tom Photenhauer a bunch of years ago. These are the non-Prana, standard 2′s that I used to play back in college. I had been playing Curry, Bach and Prana Monettes and was going to look into GR’s. I tried to make some appointments to get a GR consult but my schedule was too tight to accommodate the consultants’ schedules so I decided to go with this scaling back idea.

I’ll let you know how it goes!