We’re coming down to the wire. This is going to be a spectacular Anniversary Gala Concert, and I am grateful to all of you, players and board members, for your initiative, dedication, and tenacity.

Tomorrow’s rehearsal is our last for this season at Pelham. Please don’t go to TMH!

The end of this season is full of many events. I have planned every remaining rehearsal and detailed them completely on the Rehearsal This Week page. In addition, we have one additional WSW event and several events for which I hope you will volunteer. I have detailed a summary below. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Mondays through May 13 – Regular rehearsals at TMH, except for April 22 at Pelham. On April 29, Wind Symphony students from NVOT will join us for a “first taste” combined rehearsal in anticipation of June 11 (see below).

Friday, May 31 – Rehearsal clinic with Dr. Mallory Thompson at the MEBCI Wind Conducting Symposium. This is an official event of the season and we are depending on full participation. Please confirm your participation with Claudia by May 15. Repertoire: Shostakovich Galop and Ticheli Rest.

Saturday & Sunday, June 1 & 2 – MEBCI Wind Conducting Symposium. This is an optional event which many WSW members have attended in the past. These lab wind ensembles, 1:00-4:30 pm each day, play for symposium conductors who take the podium for 15 minute lessons with our clinician, Dr. Mallory Thompson. If you would like to volunteer to play for this event, please click here. I especially need horns and trombones at this point.

Monday, June 3 – JCE Retirement Dinner. This is obviously not an official WSW event, but I’m including it because many of you have inquired. My Music Parents Association is sponsoring my dinner at Rockleigh Country Club, Rockleigh, NJ. Everyone is welcome. If you’d like to attend, please visit this site to register.

Wednesday, June 5 (rehearsal) and Tuesday, June 11 (concert) – Massed Symphonic Band performance of the Kalinnikov at my final concert at NVOT. I am hoping many of you will want to join us for this unique event. I need brass especially at this point, so please consider playing. Click here to register to play if you have not yet done so.

Tuesday, July 23-Thursday, July 25 – Music Ed Workshop at NVOT. This is not an official WSW event, but everyone is welcome. In its second year, this workshop will focus on real-world solutions for improving instrumental ensembles. Please click here to download a flyer. All music educators are welcome! Several of our members attended last year and reported good things. The event is sponsored by the Northern Valley Staff Development Consortium.

I admit that I was thrown off center last evening by the events in Boston. Having been on the scene of the 9-11 tragedy and also having taken my students down Boylston Street just 4 weeks ago, the news was difficult to digest.

My original intent had been to mention the passing of both Adolf “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet for the Chicago Symphony for over 50 years, and Sir Colin Davis, the longest-serving principal conductor of the London Symphony. The loss of both these musical luminaries in the same day is monumental. Their lives are a true inspiration to our continuing performance legacy.

I found this article about Sir Colin Davis on the British site, The Guardian. He led an extraordinary life in so many ways.

Chris Martin, who succeeded Mr. Herseth as Principal Trumpet of the CSO, said this on Facebook late yesterday. It is a warm and beautiful tribute.

On this day of mourning, I know I speak for the members of the CSO trumpet section in offering our deepest condolences to the family of Adolph Herseth.

Bud’s impact on the music world was so monumental that every brass player alive surely has heard his brilliant, clear, inimitable tone and been changed by its clarion beauty. The astounding longevity of Bud’s 56 year career is only surpassed by the unfailingly high standard he upheld each and every day in the CSO. He was, as Daniel Barenboim aptly named him, a “pillar” of the CSO because his standard was not limited to merely equaling what he had done before but spurred on by the ideal of the excellence he could imagine. Bud combined that imagination with an unquestioning, unrelenting work ethic to do whatever it took to achieve his highest aspirations, and we have all been the fortunate beneficiaries over these 65 years.

Through his thousands of concerts, multitude of iconic recordings, and innumerable lessons and coachings, Bud had something else to teach us. It is a lesson he rarely spoke of but lived everyday: courageous sacrifice. Courage to go beyond the obvious requirements of what is expected, even if it’s more work for yourself and those around you, and a willingness to sacrifice what is comfortable and safe for something higher and perhaps unattainable. For Bud, of course, so much was attained and, in turn, given back to all.

And perhaps this is one of Bud’s most important lessons: that in the end after so much work, after endless hours honing that perfect sonic blend of strength and beauty, after countless life-changing concerts, ovations, accolades and adulations, what mattered most was the simple act of giving. Giving of his best self, his wisdom, and his heart through music. Bud spent his life in pursuit of a visionary level of trumpet artistry no one before him imagined existed and in so doing changed the course of music history.

Bud said at the end of his career that he would have started it all over again if he could. The wonderful thing about the gift of music is that he can and he does. Each time a young trumpeter hears the Reiner Zarathustra or a Solti Pictures or Mahler 5 for the first time and realizes the expressive power of a trumpet, Bud starts over again. Each time the four of us in the CSO, or in any orchestral section, or in a military band, or in a brass quintet, or in a classroom of students decides to “give it our best every time we have the chance,” Bud starts over again.

I know the CSO trumpet section feels, as Bud did, that we are all “lucky to be here,” and we share in the responsibility to try our best to uphold his legacy for the next generation.

Chris Martin
Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair
Chicago Symphony Orchestra

As I have discussed in rehearsal, I’m inviting colleagues and alumni to join the NVOT Wind Symphony, to make a massed band to play the Kalinnikov at my final NVOT concert on June 11. The performance will really benefit from your experience and expertise. If you are interested, please confirm you are able to attend:

• Rehearsal: Wednesday, June 5, 8:00-9:30 pm at NVOT
• Concert: Tuesday, June 11, 7:30 pm at NVOT

Use the form below to register to play. Thank you, and see you tomorrow evening.