STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
When 12 trumpet players take their place on the Sun Valley Pavilion stage for Monday’s BrassTacular, the audience will be looking at a phenomenon even rarer than the Great American Eclipse.
“As far as I know, a concert of this type has never been done before,” said the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s principal trumpet player Andrew McCandless. “It’s one of those ‘only in Sun Valley’ moments.”
Monday’s concert will bring together 12 of the best trumpeters in North America to play nine pieces, including the “William Tell Overture” and John Williams’ uber-familiar “Summon the Heroes,” the Olympic fanfare that leads off NBC’s coverage of the games.
McCandless chose “Song of Hope” in honor of a fellow musician who’s living with cancer. And he threw in “Another Day of Sun” from the 2016 Hollywood hit musical “La La Land” just for fun.
The trumpet spectacular will end with “Poseidon,” a new piece written by Sun Valley Summer Symphony trumpeter Anthony DiLorenzo. The Emmy Award-winning DiLorenzo has composed numerous works for TV and film, such as ABC’s College Football theme, “Toy Story,” and “The Lost World.”
He also composed the “Phoenix Horn Concerto” performed by the Sun Valley Summer Symphony a week ago.
The evening had its genesis in tonight’s concert, which requires 12 trumpets for Leos Janacek’s “Sinfonietta” fanfare. Eight trumpets are also needed for Guiseppe Verdi’s “Requiem,” which ends the symphony season on Thursday.
Why not put together a concert focusing on trumpet power, as long as we’re bringing in all those trumpet players? McCandless and Symphony Music Director Alasdair Neale told one another.
The concert will feature a variety of different trumpets, including a piccolo trumpet, the smallest of the trumpet family; E-flat and B-flat trumpets, a rich sounding conical–shaped flugelhorn developed from an 18th century German hunting horn, and a rotary trumpet, which is often played sideways.
“The concert will hit a lot of high notes,” said McCandless. “I tried to make it a fun, diverse program that I hope will be real entertaining. That’s one of my missions—for classical music to find ways to provide fun for audiences.”
McCandless fell in love with the trumpet as a fourth grader growing up in Louisville, Ky.
“One of the teachers asked, ‘Who wants to get out of class two hours a week?’ He didn’t say what for but I raised my hand. We followed him into another classroom where there were instruments on the table. I picked up trumpet and that was it,” he recounted.
He learned to produce sound by producing a buzzing sound with his lips, which he blew into the mouthpiece, starting a standing wave vibration inside the instrument. And he learned to press the valves just right to lower the pitch in order to play all 12 pitches of classical music.
And, when he was bussed to a black neighborhood during the days of integration, McCandless found himself under the tutelage of a big black trumpet player who gave him free lessons and then paid for additional lessons when Andrew’s knowledge caught up with his teacher’s.
“He always told me, ‘The door’s wide open to you, boy.’ And he opened a lot of doors to me in a field where there are thousands of graduates from music schools vying for a few jobs,” McCandless said.
He paused. “I named my son after Mr. Jarrett.”
McCandlless got his start with the Savannah Symphony at 20 and went on to play with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Dallas Symphony before being appointed principal Trumpet with the Toronto Symphony and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony in 1999.
“Trumpets often get the melody, and brass instruments in general are the loudest section in the orchestra,” he said. “When we come in, it’s exciting. We lift audiences out of their seats.”
THE TRUMPET PLAYERS:
Ryan Anthony, Dallas Symphony
Barbara Butler, Professor of Trumpet at Rice University
Jeff Biancalana, a member of the San Francisco Symphony
Anthony Dilorenzo, a soloist with the Boston Pops, New York Philharmonic and others
Karen Donnelly, principal trumpet of the National Arts Centre Orchestra
Charlie Geyer, longtime member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and currently Professor of Trumpet at Rice University
David Krauss, principal trumpet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Professor of Trumpet at Rutgers University, as well as head brass coach at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute
Douglas Lindsay, associate principal trumpet with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras
Andrew McCandless, principal trumpet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Matthew Muckey, with the New York Philharmonic
Stuart Stephenson, principal trumpet with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tiscione, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra