I’m writing this while waiting for the flight at Dallas Fort Worth airport and reflecting back on this weekend at the International Trombone Festival. I heard some incredible music, had some great laughs with new colleagues, some deep talks with Nora Wilson (who absolutely crushed the performance of Arcadia Trombonica, more on that later), and if we’re being honest, ate some incredible barbecue.

Let’s start with the music. Hearing some of the best trombone players on the continent all in one place is really a gift. Hearing the trombone choirs, the soloists, and the featured guests (Wycliffe Gordon was out of the this world) really cleaned out my ears and reminded by about the astounding depth of quality and musicianship in this world, but especially that they were all assembled on one university campus. The really remarkable thing that stood out to me across all these folks is the sense of camaraderie and support between them. I felt no competition or one-ups-manship in any of the players. So many played in so many ensembles together. Jim Nova’s concert of movie music was particularly spell-binding – the TIE fighter run from “The Force Awakens” was staggeringly good (and I’d never heard trombones perform string runs across octaves like that in my life! And with such clarity!)

While I missed the concert, hearing the conversations around the women’s trombone choir were particularly beautiful. They celebrated each other, praised one another for their performance, and then connected afterwards and talked about their lives and experiences as women, as brass players, and everything in between.

I had particularly lovely time with Nora Wilson, the low brass professor at Brandon University in Manitoba (the province where I live and from the school where I completed my graduate degree). We had great talks and incredible food throughout three days. We’ve worked on projects together for years before this, but our most recent collaboration has been pretty intense this past year all the best ways.

She performed the US Premiere of Arcadia Trombonica, my work for solo trombone and retro video game consoles here at the festival. I’ve been crunching to get the video game portion out, which is an actual video game coded by my long-time friend and colleague, Adrian Cheater, but which we captured as a video for this performance. We also went into the studio at the end of May to record it professionally and the final mix for the backing track came in literally the day before I got on the plane. While everything wasn’t totally done (we hadn’t finished all of the boss behaviours, for example), it was absolutely far enough to showcase what the piece is really about, and showcase we did!

Her performance was absolutely legendary. She was certainly among peers at this festival, holding her own with grace and ease. In fact, many other women stopped her on campus to tell her how beautiful her playing was during the women’s trombone choir performance, including her own trombone idol, Abby Konitz. Her depth of playing—from dynamic control, to phrasing, to the definition of her articulation… all of it was of breathtaking quality. When the piece ended, the audience cheered and when the cheering died down, someone yelled “when is it available?!”

There is something really special about this piece and we both feel it. It’s unique and different, but not just in a contemporary way. It’s trying to blaze a new trail and carve a new path in music, but not in a new music or redefining Western harmonic language kind of way. It’s mostly tonal with some interesting twists and has some cool rhythmic ideas, but is not polyrhythmic or breaking new ground. It’s not even just about using retro consoles and getting a hit of nostalgia (though that certainly isn’t absent from the piece or its performance).

To me, it’s about the smashing together of so many musical ideas and colours. For example: in just the accompaniment of Movement Five, there are GameBoy square waves blending with a Sega Master System PWM, which both use more than the four channels of audio they were restricted to, and are run through digital delay, echo, and big reverb through a modern DAW, and THEN we put an acoustic trombone on top with the melody! That’s the kind of smashing together that we’re talking about—old and new, electronic and acoustic, contemporary Classical music styles and video game music traditions… it’s so exciting.

There’s so much more about this piece, but I’ll share it in its own dedicated time. Some other passing thoughts:

– the wings in Texas are so big.
– It’s 30C after the sun goes down some nights, which just doesn’t happen back home. I love it.
– Everyone was super accepting and supportive in Fort Worth.
– Some of the best tacos and chips and queso in my life.
– Texas Christian University has an incredibly nice music building and some unbelievable performance spaces.

Thanks to the organizers of the ITF for a great time—you did a great job!
-Kenley