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Raymond Riccomini is a longtime trumpeter with the Metropolitan Opera, and will be taking on the role of Second Trumpet with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for the 2017-18 season.

JN: Ray, sounds like you have quite the busy summer ahead of you.

RR: Yeah, it’s a little bit crazy. A lot of new rep to learn.

JN: When do you actually head out to SF from NY?

RR: I don’t leave NY until beginning of September. So I have a little while.

JN: Is it a different vibe for you going from an opera gig to a symphony gig?

RR: Yes. The hours will be very different. I think the biggest challenge with the transition is that my family will still be in New York. As far as the new job is concerned, the biggest challenge will be to figure out what to do with all the extra free time I have. (laughing)

JN: We’re talking peak musical performance. Ray, you’ve been in the trenches so long there at the Met, so I’m sure you’ve got some stories to tell. But take us to what you consider to be one of your worst moments as a performer. A time when you expected to play a certain way, but it just didn’t work out.

RR: I can think of a couple of moments like that. I’m lucky that this happened fairly early in my career. The worst one ever was when I was at the Manhattan School of Music. We were getting ready to perform Mahler’s 6th Symphony, which is one of my favorite pieces of all time. I had waited all year to play it. I over practiced going into it, and the day before the show, I woke up with a blister on the inside of my upper lip. So being young and dumb, I thought I could just pound my way through, so I just kept playing and plyaing.

The concert started, and I knew pretty much from the get go that it was going to be a bad night. That was probably the worst moment, but it turned into one of my best moments. After the show, I left and took a weekend back at my parents house, and then came back and a week later started dating the woman who is now my wife. She said that was one of the first moments she had seen me really struggle and fail.

JN: So failure led to a great moment.

RR: A very great moment. (laughing)

JN: I like what you said earlier how you were fortunate this happened early in your career. It’s as if you just get it out of the way, now you can work on being a success.

RR: Yes. Of course, that reaction comes from being on this side of the story. If I were still the same person and the same player I was 25 years ago when that happened, I wouldn’t have that response. But looking back over the time since that happened, I’ve grown to appreciate what it meant. What it led to, and the direction in which it steered me.

JN: What was your reaction when it happened? (Before you realized it had endeared your wife to you?)

RR: I was so embarrassed. It was that feeling that you’re naked on stage. I think of that Steve Martin movie, Lonely Guy where he walks into a restaurant and says, “Table for one,” and everyone in the restaurant stops talking, the spotlight shines directly on him.

https://youtu.be/kQ7CNUuoe3E

Plus it’s such a good piece, everyone is playing so well, and here I come in to ruin everything.

JN: Well, you got it out of the way, and now you’ve seen some things at the Met. Can you describe for people who may not be familiar with the job, the magnitude of the music you play and a little taste of your workload there.

RR: If I had to boil it down to one word, you just have to be listening all the time. You’re listening to the head of the section, to the heads of other sections, how a singer is phrasing, maybe the conductor is fighting or leading them,