The Arts Salon

I talked to Chris Smith (SDSO) about the discipline required to succeed in the music industry and confronting hard truths.

Aubre Hill is an international dance artist, choreographer, somatic teacher, and event producer. The artistic director of the Qabila Folkdance Company, Lumina Dance Co, and Beyajja Dance Theatre as well as a prolific performer, Aubre is known for her diverse stylings rooted in cultural understand and pushing the boundaries of expectations with innovation. With over twenty years of teaching experience, her classes, private training, and workshops are highly valued for their inclusion, rigor, and well rounded approach. A quintessential artist in everything she does…welcome to the journey!

Ahmad Baset Azizi is one of the most inspiring human beings I have ever met. You can read some of his stories here or here. His story is truly rare in the circles most musicians in the United States move in, and his understanding of foreign affairs is refreshing and marked by the type of nuance that only someone who has seen the world's cruelty firsthand can possess. We discuss the situation in Afghanistan, his life through music, and his unique relationship with former Principal Trumpet (and guest of the Arts Salon) Dave Bilger. I look forward to many more of these conversations with my new friend Baset, whose company I enjoyed to thoroughly.

Aaron Smith is a freelance trumpet player based in Los Angeles, CA. He also writes, arranges, and publishes music through his small business, TrumpetSmith Publishing (ASCAP).

As a freelance artist, Smith performs for live orchestral events, musical theatre, big band, motion pictures, television, and video games which have included ABC, BroadwayHD, Disney+, E3, Fathom Events, the Game Awards, Microsoft, PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center, Riot Games, Spike, Touchstone Pictures, Universal, and Warner Brothers. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, Disney’s Encore!, Ellen, the LATE LATE Show, and The Voice. Ensemble appearances include the Hollywood Studio Symphony, John Daversa Progressive Big Band, LA Jazz Society All-Star Big Band, LADY GAGA Big Band, MUSE/IQUE, New West Symphony, the Industry, the OSCARS Governor’s Ball Orchestra, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Santa Barbara Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Southeast Symphony, Southwest Chamber Music, Tucson Symphony, and wasteLAnd. In the LA theater world, Smith performs regularly at the Hollywood Pantages, Dolby, and La Mirada Theaters. He was invited as a guest solo artist to the International Trumpet Guild in 2006 and again as a member of the Hollywood Epic Brass in 2016.

Smith enjoys outreach work, private teaching, composing, and arranging. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with James Thompson. He is also a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy.

Welcome, my name is Nico Bejarano, and this is the Arts Salon. You were just listening to the latest musical project from today’s guests, my friends and mentors, Persian musicians Pirayeh Pourafar and Houman Pourmhedi. This composition was made in support of the protesters in Iran whose chants Women, life, liberty with alternations of death to the dictator have been heard across Iran for many months now.

As is now routine in these cases, there has been a sleuth of unpalatable commentary from so-called foreign-affairs analysts—who have travelled little and know less—attempting to dissect the reasons for the latest protests in Iran. As common sense is so lacking amongst this ilk, let us not lose track of what our eyes see clearly and our ears are hearing thanks to the wonders of mobile phones and the internet. Be cautious now, and remember that in 2021 as the Cuban streets erupted in protests, the Biden administration assured us that despite the chanting Cuba Libre and Patria y Vida we should believe that the people of Cuba were actually protesting the lack of effective vaccination on the Island. I once again share the words of Orwell, “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.” Trust your eyes and ears: just as the people of Cuba were not chanting more vaccines, or covid relief, but instead Free Cuba and Nation and Life; Iranians now are being clear in their frustrations by chanting Women, life, Liberty! And Death to the dictator!

Today is a real treat for me, because Gustav is one of my best friends and one of the best people I know. Gustav Melander is regarded as one of Europe’s most talented young trumpet players. Having studied with Bo Nilsson and Prof. Håkan Hardenberger at the Malmö Academy of Music, since graduating, Gustav has gone on to become one of the most in demand players.

Currently the tenured Co-principal Trumpet of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Gustav also regularly features with other Scandinavian Orchestras such as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a soloist, Melander performs regularly and has made notable solo appearances making his debut in 2014 with the Malmö Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra and in December 2016 performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra.

Passionate about education, Melander has a number of students and has been a trumpet teacher at the Malmö Academy of Music since 2015.

Today’s guest is my good friend Jerome Burns. For those of you who might not know Jerome, he is that crazy trumpet player that has been posting his insane transcriptions for the trumpet of Meshuggah guitar solos. Jerome is a graduate of the Manhattan School of music where he studied under Mark Gould, and is also a specialist on the music of Karheilnz Stockhausen, having completed the Master’s Degree in Aus Licht under the tutelage of Marco Blaauw in Holland. This episode deals with many subjects most notably “student” mentality and its trappings, and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. This episode was recorded over a year ago, so some of the talk might seem dated.

I wanted to have Jerome on because he was successful at something that the vast majority of people in the professional classical music sphere failed to do: create meaningful and unique online musical content during the COVID lockdowns. While even lauded professionals were posting lackluster videos of themselves playing orchestral excerpts and warmups, Jerome delighted us all every Monday with his fiendishly difficult and profound renditions of metal music transcriptions. By doing this, in my mind, he joined the ranks of other artists like Håkan Hardenberger, Wynton Marsalis, Dan Rosenboom, Peter Evans, Stephanie Richards, and a selected few more who offered listeners something worth their attention.

I eagerly await what is next from Jerome, when he finally puts all he has learned in the last two years into a practical setting, you will surely see me purchasing the first ticket.

Jan Swafford's music has been played around the country and abroad by ensembles including the symphonies of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and the Dutch Radio; Boston's new-music groups Musica Viva, Collage, and Dinosaur Annex; and chamber ensembles including the Peabody Trio, the Chamber Orchestra of Tennessee, and the Scott Chamber Players of Indianapolis.

Over the years his music has evolved steadily, but in all its avatars his work is forthrightly expressive, individual in voice, and steadily concerned with lucidity of texture and form. Beneath the surface there are contributions from world music, especially Indian and Balinese, and from jazz and blues. The titles of his works—including Landscape with Traveler, From the Shadow of the Mountain, and The Silence at Yuma Point—reveal a steady inspiration from nature. The composer views his work as a kind of classicism: a concern with clarity and directness, pieces that seem familiar though they are new, that aspire to sound like they wrote themselves.

Also a well-known writer on music, Swafford is author of biographies of Ives, Brahms, and Beethoven. His journalism appears regularly in Slate. He is a long-time program writer and preconcert lecturer for the Boston Symphony and has written program notes and essays for the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto.

We discuss his article on AI and music The Intelligence of Bodies: https://van-magazine.com/mag/jan-swafford-beethoven-x/

Anthony Plog has had a rich and varied international career in music—as a composer of operas, symphonic music, and chamber works; as an orchestral musician, soloist, and recording artist; and as a brass teacher and coach at some of the great music conservatories internationally and now online to students around the world.

It was a great gift to re-visit my conversation with Tony as I return to bringing my thought to a broader audience. These last months have been spent deep in books, deep in the study of the economics of art, and immersed in the writings of anyone who has asked the question “whither art?”

Today’s guest is Arturo Sandoval. I will read a short bio taken from his website. Arturo Sandoval is one of the most dynamic and vivacious live performers of our time, and has been seen by millions at the Oscars, at the Grammy Awards, and the Billboard Awards. Arturo Sandoval reaches beyond the scope of mere effort. His struggles while in Cuba and since his defection have given him more energy and strength, urging him to accomplish and surpass his childhood dreams. Filled with a virtuoso capability, he desires nothing more than to share his gift with others who feel the same intense adoration for music as he does. One frequently speaks of Arturo Sandoval’s virtuoso technical ability or his specialty in high notes, but he who has seen him on the piano, lyrically improvising a ballad, or has had the opportunity to enjoy the diversity of his music, through his compositions from the most straight-ahead jazz, Latin jazz or classical, knows that Arturo Sandoval is a prominent musician, and one recognizes that Arturo is one of the most brilliant, multifaceted and renowned musicians of our time.