New York Philharmonic Player Bios

[JackD]

Phil Smith



Philip Smith joined the New York Philharmonic as Co-Principal Trumpet in October 1978, and assumed the position of Solo Principal Trumpet in June 1988. His early training was provided at The Salvation Army, and continued under the tutelage of his father, Derek Smith, himself a renowned cornetist. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School, having studied with Edward Treutel and William Vacchiano, former Principal Trumpet of the New York Philharmonic. In January 1975, while still at Juilliard, Mr. Smith was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Sir Georg Solti.

Mr. Smith has appeared regularly as soloist, recitalist, chamber orchestra performer, and clinician. He has been featured as a soloist with the Philharmonic in more than 75 performances under conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur, Erich Leinsdorf, Leonard Bernstein, Neeme Järvi and Bramwell Tovey. Highlights have included the world premiere of Joseph Turrin’s Trumpet Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, its subsequent European premiere with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the U.S. premiere of Jacques Hetu’s Trumpet Concerto, the world premiere (2000) of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto, and the world premiere (2003) of Siegfried Matthus’s Double Concerto for Trumpet, Trombone, and Orchestra. He has been a guest soloist with the Edmonton Symphony, Newfoundland Symphony, Columbus (Indiana) Symphony, Pensacola (Florida) Symphony, Hartford (Connecticut) Symphony, and Beaumont (Texas) Symphony.

Mr. Smith has also appeared with many symphonic wind ensembles, including the United States “President’s Own” Marine Band, La Philharmonie des Vents des Quebec, Hanover Wind Symphony, Ridgewood Concert Band, and many major university wind ensembles. He has appeared at The College Band Directors National Association Convention in Austin, Texas, for the world premiere (1999) of Turrin’s Chronicles with the University of New Mexico Wind Ensemble.

An avid brass band enthusiast, Mr. Smith has been guest soloist with the United States Army Brass Band, Goteborg Brass (Sweden), Black Dyke Mills and Ridged Containers Bands (Britain), Hannaford Street Silver Band and Intrada Brass (Canada), and numerous American and Salvation Army Brass Bands. He appeared as featured soloist at the 1996 British Open Brass Band Championships in Manchester, England.

Mr. Smith has been on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has appeared as recitalist and clinician at the Caramoor International Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Swiss Brass Week, Breman (Germany) Trumpet Days, Oslo (Norway) Trumpet Week, Harmony Ridge (Vermont) Festival, Scotia Festival of Music and numerous International Trumpet Guild conferences.

As a member of the Principal Brass Quintet of the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Smith has twice toured Japan, and has upcoming visits to Brazil and Germany. He has also performed and recorded with the Canadian Brass, Empire Brass, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart Orchestra, Bargemusic, and New York Virtuosi Chamber Symphony. His solo recordings include Contest Solos produced by the International Trumpet Guild; Fandango, featuring New York Philharmonic Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi and the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony (Summit); My Song of Songs with the New York Staff Band of The Salvation Army (Triumphonic); Copland’s Quiet City (Deutsche Grammophone); New York Legends (CALA); Orchestral Excerpts for Trumpet, (Summit); Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Concerto for Trumpet and Five Instruments (New World); Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (Koch); Walton’s Façade (Arabesque); and The Trump Shall Resound and Repeat the Sounding Joy (Heritage).

Mr. Smith has recently been involved in a series of projects with Curnow Music Press, publishing music arrangements with demonstration CDs. These include “Great Hymns” for Trumpet, Piano and Organ, “Concert Studies” for Trumpet, and “Great Christmas Carols” for Trumpet, Piano and Organ. He has also been featured in a similar project entitled “Total Trumpet,” featuring trumpet studies written by Michael Davis and demonstrated by Randy Brecker, Jim Hynes and Philip Smith, published by Hip-Bone Music.

Mr. Smith and his wife perform with their Gospel group (www.ResoundingPraise.com) throughout North America. They have two adult children and live in New Jersey.

From the New York Philharmonic website.

[JackD]

Thomas V. Smith



A native of Detroit, Michigan, Thomas Smith came to the Philharmonic as fourth trumpet in September 1998. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and the New England Conservatory, where he received a bachelor's degree with distinction in 1981, he came to the Philharmonic from Boston, where he was a freelance musician, playing regularly with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. He also performed with Sara Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston and the Boston Lyric Opera for many years. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Smith has performed in many groups, including Collage and Musica Viva as well as Gunther Schuller's New England Ragtime Ensemble. Principle teachers include Robert Nagel, Vince Penzarella, Allen Dean and Roger Voisin. Mr. Smith has two children, Zachary and Molly, and a wife, MaryAnn.

From the New York Philharmonic website.

[JackD]

Vincent Penzarella



Trumpeter Vincent Penzarella joined the New York Philharmonic in 1977, after eight years' membership in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he was a full scholarship student and earned a master's degree in three years. During that period he also performed as a substitute player with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and played with the University of Pennsylvania band and the Temple University orchestra and band. Following graduation he studied with Arnold Jacobs and former New York Philharmonic Co-Principal Trumpeter John Ware. Mr. Penzarella has played principal trumpet with the Baltimore Symphony, the New York City Opera Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony. He is also a former member of the Brass Arts Quintet. Mr. Penzarella is currently on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and State University of New York at Purchase.

From the New York Philharmonic website.

[SPITTY]

I am attending a master class with Thomas Smith on November 7 at Mannes' Brass Day. Can't wait.

Cheers,
Jason aka Spitty

[JackD]

Louis Ranger

Louis Ranger has been Co-principal Trumpet with the New York Philharmonic and a member of the American Brass Quintet. Currently he is Co-principal trumpet with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and is a faculty member of the Aspen Music School and Professor of Trumpet at the University of Victoria School of Music in Victoria, B.C., Canada. He has been a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and the Musica Aeterna Orchestra, which performed regularly at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ranger has lived in Paris, where he was a guest lecturer at the orchestral training school maintained by the Orchestre de Paris. Solo appearances in Paris included recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral. Some of the ensembles in which he has appeared include the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the New York City Opera Orchestra. Born in Syracuse, New York, he received early training from Anthony DeAngelis and Harold Back. He studied at Boston University and Tanglewood with Armando Ghitalla and received his bachelor's degree from the Julliard School, where he studied with William Vacchiano.

From Louis Ranger's CD: "The Trumpet Comes of Age: 1940-1980" (Crystal Records)

[JackD]

Robert Sullivan



Robert Sullivan has been Associate Principal Trumpet in the New York Philharmonic since December, 1993. A performer with varied interests, Mr. Sullivan has held positions in the Chicago Chamber Brass, the U.S. Air Force Band, and the Charleston (SC) Symphony, and toured for two seasons with trumpet and organ duo "Toccatas and Flourishes". Robert began his musical studies in the Norwood, MA public schools, and won numerous awards for his jazz playing while in high school. After hearing Armando Ghitalla perform with the Boston Pops, Robert auditioned for him, and went on to study with Mr. Ghitalla at the University of Michigan, and won the Armando A. Ghitalla fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Sullivan remains an active soloist, clinician, and teacher, and serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music. He resides in metropolitan New York with his wife and three sons.

Robert Sullivan is a Yamaha performing artist.

From Robert Sullivan's CD "Treasures for Trumpet" (Summit Records)

[Mikeytrpt]

FYI: Bob is now Associate Principal in the Cleveland Orchestra....

[JackD]

[JackD]

William Vacchiano

Trumpeter William Vacchiano lays claim to one of the most remarkable careers in the history of American orchestral performance. As a member of the New York Philharmonic for 38 years (as assistant principal from 1935-42 and principal from 1942 until his retirement from the orchestra in 1973), Vacchiano never missed a concert in which he was scheduled to perform. A renowned pedagogue, he was a treasured member of the Juilliard faculty for an astonishing 67 years (1935-2002), and also served on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music (1935-2002) and the Mannes College of Music (1937-83). In 1995, Vacchiano estimated that he had taught about 2,000 trumpet students. At one time, his students played in virtually every major orchestra in the country.

A native of Portland, Me., Vacchiano spoke Neapolitan Italian at home with his parents and siblings. He began studying the trumpet after a serendipitous misunderstanding of his father's suggestion that he should play "clarinetto," which the younger Vacchiano recalled as "cornetto" when his solfeggio teacher, a monolingual Italian by the name of Senor De Nobili, began enumerating possible instruments from which he might choose. Although his father was annoyed when he came home with the wrong instrument, his mother unwittingly helped seal her son's future when she remarked, "What's the difference? He's not going to be a professor."

Vacchiano's early teachers in Portland included Frank Knapp and a succession of capable trumpet players from the local theaters. He later traveled to Boston for lessons with Louis Kloepfel and Walter M. Smith. During his high school years, he played with the Portland Municipal Orchestra and as an unofficial member of the 242nd Coast Artillery Band.

In 1931, Vacchiano entered the Institute of Musical Art, which later became The Juilliard School, where he studied with the renowned Max Schlossburg until 1933. In 1935, Vacchiano auditioned for positions at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic on the same day. At the Met audition, Vacchiano was asked by the personnel manager, Simone Mantia, to play only one passage: six successive high notes from the finale of Der Rosenkavalier. He played them, was offered the position on the spot, and signed a contract. At the Philharmonic audition, Toscanini asked him first to play a few soft, high notes from the conclusion of La Mer, then instructed him to leave for a few minutes, then asked him to come back and play the same passage. After repeating the process a third time, a nerve-frayed Vacchiano was offered the job. When he called Mantia to tell him what happened, Mantia reportedly told him, "Go with the Philharmonic; it's a better job. And God bless you."

In his long career at the New York Philharmonic, Vacchiano played under and recorded with such illustrious conductors as Leonard Bernstein, André Kostelanetz, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, George Szell, and Bruno Walter. Known for his impeccable technique, beautiful tone, and graceful legato, Vacchiano was largely responsible for the widespread modern practice of using trumpets in various keys to fit the instrument to the music more closely. He has published numerous trumpet method books and designed his own line of trumpet mouthpieces.

Among Vacchiano's many students at Juilliard who went on to significant careers were Wynton Marsalis, Gerard Schwarz, and current faculty member Philip Smith. In May 2002, Juilliard held an event, attended by approximately 100 former students, colleagues, and friends, to celebrate Vacchiano's distinguished career on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to American musical performance and teaching, Vacchiano will be awarded Juilliard's Honorary Doctor of Music degree on May 23.

From the Julliard Journal Online.

[JackD]

Gerard Schwarz



Gerard Schwarz is one of America's top conductors, particularly noted for championing the first great age of American symphonists. He is also a gifted trumpet virtuoso. He began studying the trumpet at the age of eight. He attended the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, during the summers of 1958-60 and studied at New York's High School of Performing Arts. He studied trumpet with William Vacchiano, principal trumpeter of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra ( 1962-68 ). He received his Bachelor's Degree from the Juilliard School in 1972.

He joined the American Brass Quintet in 1965, and with it toured the United States, Europe, and Asia, remaining with the ensemble from 1965 to 1973. He was a trumpeter in the American Symphony Orchestra from 1966 to 1972, becoming its first trumpet in 1969. With that orchestra he played a considerable quantity of new and American music. During this period is was also a member of the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Casals Festival Orchestra. He was appointed co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1972 to 1975. As a trumpet player he made a number of important recordings, many of which are now in the CD catalogues. He was the first wind player to win the Ford Foundation Award for concert artists (1971-73), which enabled him to commission a trumpet concerto from Gunther Schuller, and commissioned a number of other trumpet works from composers including Dlugoszewski and Brant.

Meanwhile, he pursued a conducting career. In 1968 he began conducting for the Eliot Feld Dance Company, of which he became Music Director. He also was music director of the Waterloo Festival, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 1975 he was appointed music director of the 92d Street Y Chamber Symphony, which was later renamed the New York Chamber Symphony, and has maintained that position since. He became music director of New York's Mostly Mozart Festival in 1982. In 1981 he founded the Music Today contemporary music series in New York, serving as its music director through 1989.

In 1983 he was named Music Advisor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In 1984 he became its Principal Conductor, and in 1985 its Music Director. With the Seattle Symphony he has become known for having one of the most innovative and wide-ranging programming of any major symphony orchestra, with a strong emphasis on music of the great American symphonic composers such as Hanson, Diamond, Creston, Copland, and their contemporaries, a large amount of which he has recorded. He has guided the orchestra to its highest artistic level, and seen it through construction and occupancy of its new venue, Benaroya Hall. He is also artistic adviser of the Tokyo Bunkamura's Orchard Hall, where he conducts the Tokyo Philharmonic in six concerts annually.

From Allmusic.com.

[Derek Reaban]

Matthew Mucky



Matthew Muckey joined the Philharmonic in June 2006. He recently graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor’s degree in music, studying with Charles Geyer and Barbara Butler. A native of Sacramento, California, he has appeared as soloist with the Omaha Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, California Wind Orchestra, Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, and on NPR’s program, From the Top. He has also played with the Boston Pops Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Chicago Civic Orchestra.

Mr. Muckey was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center during the summers of 2003 to 2005, and was the recipient of the Roger Voisin Award in 2004 and 2005.

Player bio taken from the New York Philharmonic web site from 2007.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[jpetrocelli]

One seems to be missing.............
_________________
Joe Petrocelli

[Derek Reaban]

Ethan Bensdorf



Ethan Bensdorf joined the New York Philharmonic’s trumpet section on June 3, 2008, after spending the 2007–08 season as acting assistant principal trumpet with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra in Naples, Florida. He received his bachelor of music degree from Northwestern University in 2007, where he studied with Barbara Butler, Charles Geyer, and Christopher Martin. While a student at Northwestern, Mr. Bensdorf spent two years performing with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and also performed with the New World Symphony and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary ensemble, MusicNOW. In May 2005, Mr. Bensdorf was selected to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts representing Northwestern University as part of “The Conservatory Project” recital series.

In September of 2006, Mr. Bensdorf received the Armando Ghitalla International Trumpet Classic Award, which included solo appearances with the United States Coast Guard Band and the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra in Massachusetts. He also spent two summers as a participant in the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; one summer at the National Orchestral Institute in Maryland; and was selected as a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summers of 2006 and 2007, where he received the Voisin Trumpet Award.

Player bio taken from the New York Philharmonic website from 2009.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

Article from the New York Times

July 3, 2014
Philip Smith, Master Trumpeter
Posted by William Robin



There are two kinds of celebrities in the classical-music world. There are your Lang Langs and Gustavo Dudamels—fêted regularly in the Times, selling out a concert hall at a moment’s notice. Then there are the names that ring out through the halls of conservatories across the country—working musicians who possess superhuman abilities and populate orchestras in cities major and minor.

The trumpeter Philip Smith is in that latter category, which is why his retirement last month from the New York Philharmonic is headline news only in certain circles. On Saturday, the Philharmonic will honor him with “A Celebration of Phil Smith” featuring the orchestra’s brass-and-percussion ensemble. Smith is not alone among major Philharmonic retirees this season, who also include Glenn Dicterow, the orchestra’s concertmaster. Dicterow has cultivated a honeyed tone that has given the Philharmonic a particularly Old World sound for thirty-four years—and certainly deserves the major sendoff he has been given this season—but he does not loom as large in the violin world as Smith does among brass players. Violinists have hundreds of superstars to model themselves after, from Itzhak Perlman to Hilary Hahn. The world of classical trumpet, with only a handful of virtuoso soloists outside the orchestral tradition, has Smith.

For the past thirty-six years, Smith has presided over orchestral trumpet playing, with a resonant, clarion sound and a reputation for never missing a note. When I studied at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music—a brass-heavy conservatory, with its close proximity to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—trumpeters talked about him in hushed tones. There were local models, of course, but Smith cultivated a certain air of plainspoken mystery. An active member of the Salvation Army church, he was a rare brass player whose religious convictions seemed directly to inform his sterling timbre. You couldn’t learn to play like Phil Smith; you simply heard what he did and tried to imitate it as best as possible.

Two relatively recent additions to the Philharmonic’s trumpet section agree. In April, during a break in rehearsals at Avery Fisher Hall, I met with Matthew Muckey and Ethan Bensdorf, two of the orchestra’s trumpeters. They grew up venerating Smith, only to find themselves his colleagues in their early twenties. Muckey became associate principal trumpet in 2006, and Bensdorf joined the section two years later. After Smith’s retirement this season, both will remain with the orchestra while trumpeters audition to fill the major lacuna he leaves. (Muckey plans on taking the audition.)

Smith declined to be present as I interviewed his colleagues, so we talked a couple days later. (He was worried, unjustifiably, that they might speak ill of him.) We listened to trumpet recordings: with Muckey and Bensdorf, to a sampling of Smith’s greatest solo and orchestral moments; with Smith, to his own models, and to works from his years at the Philharmonic and as a soloist.

Brass players are tinkerers at heart, always exploring the possibility that a minute change in lip or tongue placement might unlock new sonic worlds. Smith, though, seems to transcend technique. “No matter how hard something actually is, it never sounds that way—it always sounds effortless,” Bensdorf said as we listened. Smith’s ethos revolves around listening and singing, concepts so abstract as to seem meaningless, but which nevertheless compel the musicians around him. “Most of the time, Phil wouldn’t even need to say anything. He just plays it and you know,” Muckey added. “That’s what makes him such a great leader: people are drawn to his sound.”

Born in England but raised on Long Island, Smith grew up in the Salvation Army church, which has a long tradition of brass-band playing. He studied cornet with his father, a prominent soloist. He excelled in the Salvation Army bands, but also admired recordings of famous trumpeters like Maurice André and Rafael Méndez,. “This was stuff that got you excited as a kid—you said, ‘Man, I gotta do this,’ ” Smith told me, listening to André and Méndez on recording. “You hadn’t achieved anything until you could imitate it.”

That approach helped Smith to win a spot at Juilliard, though he knew little of the brass tradition taught in conservatories. He wasn’t allowed to play in Juilliard’s orchestra for his first two years; Smith was yelled out of an audition by the school’s conductor because he had never learned how to transpose—reading a trumpet part in one key and quickly adapting it to a different one, an essential orchestral skill. But, soon after beginning a master’s degree, studying with William Vacchiano—the Philharmonic’s former principal trumpeter—he won an audition for the Chicago Symphony.

“The advantage that I had was coming from a church background, a hymnody background,” Smith said. “The way I was taught was ‘Always sing, always play the lyrics.’ ” That sustained lyricism is the quintessential Smith sound. “There’s such a singing quality,” Bensdorf told me. “It’s not even like you’re listening to an instrumentalist—it’s like you’re listening to someone use their natural equipment to sing.” In concert, Smith will often sing along with the orchestra when he’s not playing.

Smith had barely three years of orchestral experience when he won the Chicago job. Bensdorf and Muckey had more than ten under their belts when they joined the Philharmonic. They shared a common lineage in the form of the Chicago brass sound, having both studied at Northwestern. Smith’s Chicago years were essentially an apprenticeship in orchestral practice, guided by legendary principal trumpeter Bud Herseth, who had a fifty-three-year career with the symphony and is widely considered the greatest orchestral trumpeter of all time. Smith called Herseth his “Gabriel”—”post-graduate study in the Chicago Symphony was the best course I ever had,” he told me. He cut his teeth on the Chicago orchestral repertoire, learning the big, brassy symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner.

Smith joined the Philharmonic in 1978, and has played a prominent role in the orchestra’s sound since. He fondly reminisced about encounters with conductors like Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, and Klaus Tennstedt, who shaped his understanding of the epic trumpet solo that opens Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Tennstedt “spoke about this hand coming out of darkness, this hand of death. Each time it came, it came closer,” Smith said, singing the part. “Dagga da da—it came closer—dagga da da—and it went back. Dagga da daaa—he wanted the fourth note each time to be longer, because he wanted this hand to have motion. Dagga da deeeem. Dagga datt,” he cut off, abruptly. “Death got ya. And, at that point, death struts its stuff, and off you go.”

Too often are orchestral musicians considered cogs within a machine, interchangeable parts of a system over which they have little interpretative control. It’s assumed that the impassioned performances of Beethoven or Shostakovich that one hears in Avery Fisher or Disney Hall flow directly from the all-encompassing philosophy of a conductor, who molds the orchestra to suit his will. But the highly idiosyncratic training of an orchestra’s members—who draw on their conservatory backgrounds, as well as decades of working with radically different conductors and colleagues—undergirds each performance. The particular sonic world that an orchestra inhabits is the result of the conglomeration of its players, a collaboration between dozens of individualized interpretations shaped by the singular vision of a music director.

Orchestral musicians have a bit more prominence today, as they increasingly take on public roles as negotiators in labor disputes. (The musicians of several ensembles, including Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra, have created their own Web sites as a form of advocacy; the Philharmonic, which amicably agreed on a new contact last year, is a notable exception.) But often lost in the solidarity fostered by contract debates is the degree to which an orchestra is the composite of virtuosos like Smith.

Smith has maintained warm relationships with the Philharmonic’s music directors, but his reserved composure always comes first. “I never liked being chummy; I don’t think that’s a healthy place to be,” he said. “But I did like the rapport and the professionalism that went back and forth.” In 1985, Smith recorded Copland’s “Quiet City” with the orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. “He was such a neat guy to play with—you just wanted to play for him. He just exuded music and passion. Whether or not you like the concept, I don’t care. There was something going on, and you just gave it your absolute best.”

That intimate, restrained recording is a touchstone for Muckey and Bensdorf. “Nothing ever sounds hectic or hurried with him, and so every note has meaning,” Bensdorf said, after we listened to it. “There’s such a complexity to his sound,” Muckey added. “You can be listening to one part of his sound and say ‘Oh, that’s so bright and brilliant.’ And then, one second he changes it to a dark and mellow sound. And that is so difficult to do, and he does it so easily.”

The eternal concern of brass players—and trumpeters in particular, whose best orchestral moments send them to the stratosphere of their instruments’ range—is the frack: in the heat of the moment, a desired note is replaced with a bleat, buzz, or shriek. Reliability is valued as much as beauty of sound. Tracking Smith since their teens, Muckey and Bensdorf have been consistently impressed by his consistency. “I think, besides his sound, that’s probably what he’s most known for—just never missing,” Muckey said.

“They’re liars,” Smith said to me when I told him what Muckey alleged. “Everybody cracks notes. The idea is to press on; the idea is to put something else out there that someone grabs ahold of, so that they don’t remember the crack. The cracks are gonna happen.”

“Every once in a while, you do hear Phil crack a note,” Bensdorf admitted. “Nobody’s perfect, and it made me feel so much more at ease that even Phil Smith is human. But just barely.”

I played a 2012 live recording of Mussorgksy’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” for the two young trumpeters—a performance that Bensdorf had played in. Lead trumpeters typically favor a martial, foursquare approach to the opening “Promenade,” perfecting each individual note but losing the sense of a continuous stroll through a gallery. Smith instead glides through the orchestra, each note gem-like but flowing to the next.
“It almost appears like one note comes out of the last,” Muckey said. “Which is what it’s supposed to sound like,” Bensdorf interjected. “But I never really quite grasped that concept until I got here and had no choice but to absorb that, too. It’s not necessarily the volume that gets you heard, it’s the sustain. The singing and the resonance: everything means something.”

Smith was quite emotional when we met, having spent the past several days listening to old recordings and ruminating on his legacy. In the fall, he will begin teaching at the University of Georgia, putting pedagogy before performance for the first time. A thirty-six-year career in the same orchestra means that expectations can remain high over a lifetime. “People keep showing up, and they want Mahler’s Fifth in 2013 to sound as good as it did in 1978,” he said. “And you’re going, ‘Shoot, man, I’m not sure if I can do that.’ So you have to watch the little voices and try to shove them out of the way.”

“Try not to get focussed on mistakes. It’s like watching the Olympics—how many times you know these people are tops of their field, they get to the Olympics and the voices win. So it’s a constant battle to say, ‘Don’t let the voices win.’ Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing. When the voices start going, start singing.”

Photograph by Hiroyuki Ito/Getty.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

I have been given the role of principal trumpet in the New York Philharmonic for a little slice of time. I need to be a good steward of the position.
--Phil Smith--

CNN Player Profiles Interview from February 23, 2001

Phil Smith, trumpet: 'It's a blessing'


By Beth Nissen
CNN.com Senior Correspondent
(CNN) -- This is the third part of an exclusive 10-part series on CNN.com/Career, on the working lives of musicians who play with the New York Philharmonic, one of the world's premiere symphony orchestras.

This week's Player: Phil Smith, principal trumpet.

Player Profile
Philip Smith, principal trumpet
Hometown: Floral Park, Long Island, New York
Age: 48
Age at which he began to play trumpet: 7
Early music education: Lessons at Salvation Army church, Hempstead, Long Island; playing on street corners with Salvation Army bands
Formal music training: The Juilliard School
Professional resumé: 1975 -- while still at Juilliard, appointed to the Chicago Symphony
1978 -- joined the New York Philharmonic as co-principal trumpet
1988 -- became principal trumpet, New York Philharmonic.
Frequent guest soloist with various orchestras and brass bands, including Edmonton Symphony; Hartford (Connecticut) Symphony; Beaumont (Texas) Symphony; U.S. Army Brass Band; Salvation Army Brass bands
Number of years with New York Philharmonic: 23
Favorite pieces to play: Mahler, Third Symphony; Mahler, Fifth Symphony; Rachmaninoff symphonies; hymns
Recordings: With the Canadian Brass; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; The Salvation Army New York Staff Band. Solo recordings: Aaron Copland's "Quiet City," "Orchestral Excerpts for Trumpet," "New York Legends," Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 2," "Great Hymns," "The Trumpet Shall Resound"

He grew up in a Salvation Army family, playing cornet on street corners and in church bands. His father, a Salvation Army band soloist, was his only teacher. But Phil Smith was a player gifted enough to make it into Juilliard with no formal training -- then to the Chicago Symphony on his first audition; and then, while still in his 20s, to the New York Philharmonic as principal trumpet.

He's an unfailingly humble man, a gentle soul whose strongest curse word is "crumbs." But when he picks up the trumpet, he plays with extraordinary power and passion. Many of his colleagues in the New York Philharmonic -- and in other major orchestras -- consider him one of the best trumpet players in the world. And he does it all on faith.

When and why did you start playing the trumpet?

I was probably about 7. I belong to the Salvation Army church -- I'm a fourth-generation Salvationist. I grew up playing outside on street corners at Christmas time. Young kids in any of our churches -- as soon as they can, we get them singing. And as soon as they get their second teeth, we put some kind of brass instrument in their hands -- it's just part of the fellowship of the church. The founder of the Army, William Booth, believed in taking the gospel to the street, and he used a brass band for that purpose.

My dad was a cornet player -- he was the stand-up soloist with the premiere Salvation Army band here in New York City. He had a very sweet, mellow tone -- his heart came through his horn -- and I was attracted to that. From a young age, I watched him and had visions of growing up to be like him. I started on cornet -- when you're a little kid, it's easy to hold a cornet. My father was my teacher -- he was my only teacher.

At what point did you decide this might be your life's work professionally?

Like a lot of kids, you just go through life doing what you like to do and what you're good at. Then when you get to 11th grade, some guidance counselor says, "So what are you gonna do?" Well, I liked music, so that seemed a natural choice for me.

The safe bet was to do music education, because professional musicians -- well, you can't make a living being a professional musician, I thought. A young lady who was a Salvationist and a professional trumpet player at the time got the ear of my dad and said, "You know, he ought to audition for Juilliard." I was accepted, and I got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree at Juilliard.

Did your history of playing on street corners and in concerts with Salvation Army bands prepare you for Juilliard?

Oh, I was completely behind the eight ball. What I knew was cornet and brass banding -- I knew nothing about being a trumpet player. For my audition at Juilliard, the orchestra person put up a piece of music and asked me to play. So I played what I saw -- which trumpet players very often don't do. They look at the music, but play it perhaps a major third higher or a perfect fourth higher -- they transpose. I knew nothing about the technique of transposition. I played what I saw, which is what happens in the brass band. The man stopped me and said, "What are you doing? You should play it this way." And I looked at him like he was crazy -- I didn't know what to do.

How difficult was the transition from band music to orchestra music?

Great music is great music -- whether I'm playing hymn arrangements in the Army or playing the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony in the orchestra. What was hard about the transition was the language -- I didn't know the orchestral language. And I was a "feminine" cornet player, not a "masculine" trumpet player -- they're two different instruments in terms of style and approach.

Is the trumpet difficult to play? Difficult to master?

The most difficult thing is to get the best tone. You can have oodles of technique, but if you've got no tone, it's not going to be attractive to the person hearing it. Tone comes from the inner ear -- you can't teach it. It comes from deep inside your brain -- and also your heart.

I can sit there and tell you to do this with your mouth, and make sure you blow, and that doesn't translate into anything. First is hearing it in your head; the other part is your heart -- having this innate part of our soul that needs to express itself. Music is not just the black dots on the white paper -- it's what happens when those black dots on the white paper go into your heart, and come out again.

How forgiving an instrument is the trumpet?

A trumpet is a bold instrument; a signal instrument. From days of old, the trumpet was the instrument that called people to battle; it called people to gatherings. But whether you're on a ram's horn or a legitimate trumpet, if you don't hit the note right in the middle, that's going to be heard -- and it's going to be brutal. There's a verse in the Bible that says, "If a trumpet sounds an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?"

It's more unforgiving for the youngster than it is for the professional. That's why I like to start kids on cornet, because the cornet is a softer-sounding instrument. So a kid's first honk, his first blat on a cornet, is a mellow blat. If you start with the trumpet, the initial blat is more brash.
Do even professional trumpet-players "blat" now and then? Hit bad notes?
(Laughs.) We call them "clams," or "cacks," or "splee-ahs" -- they're common.

"Splee-ahs"?

That's exactly what it sounds like: You go to hit a note, and the sound goes "SPLEE-aaaahhhhh." I wanted to get that as a license plate, but I haven't been able to. (Laughs.)

The trumpet is showcased, a lot -- there are many, many pieces that have prominent melodic parts for the trumpet. Most of the parts are bravura -- they call for strong playing. But you have to play some little delicate things sometimes. There may just be two bars of pianissimo (very soft) in a piece, but those are probably the toughest two bars to play out of the whole piece. Playing softly takes more control, and there's a higher risk of splee-ahs or air-balls -- nothing but air comes out.

It can be so obvious when a brass instrument hits a wrong note. Do you ever envy the violinist in the middle of the violin section, whose slip might not be so noticeable?

Yeah, I'll be honest -- there are times when I wish I was more anonymous. (Laughs.) But there's also the part of being in the forefront that's exhilarating. And that's kinda why you play trumpet, because you kinda like that.

How did you get your first orchestra job?

Near the end of my time at Juilliard, I started taking auditions and trying to find my way into the workplace. Three announcements for trumpet auditions came up. One was in Calgary, Canada -- I sent a letter of application and they didn't even respond. The other was in Honolulu -- I sent a letter and they wrote back and said I didn't have enough experience on my resumé. The third one was in Miami. They actually gave me an audition date, but it conflicted with a date I had playing with the New York Salvation Army Staff Band, so I couldn't make the audition date.

So my first audition, in November of '74, was for the Chicago Symphony. I knew there was no way I was going to win this -- I was this kid, this greenhorn, "Phil Who?" Well, I ended up winning the audition. I was shocked. I started with the Chicago Symphony in January of '75.

How many trumpets do you own?

Total, I might have as many as 20. You have to understand that if you start at middle C on the piano, and play up one octave, there's a trumpet that's built on that key: There's a C trumpet, a D trumpet, an E-flat, an E, an F, a G, an A, a high B-flat, and a low B-flat.

I have two primary trumpets: I have a primary C trumpet, pitched in (the key of ) C, which I use in the orchestra 98.9 percent of the time. And I have a primary B-flat trumpet, which I practice on, and which is the standard trumpet of trumpet-players. I do a lot of solo work on that -- a lot of solos are for B-flat and for C.

Depending on the music we play, we'll play on either a German trumpet or an American trumpet. Germans refer to our piston-valve trumpets as "jazz trumpets." I play the piston-valve C and the piston-valve B-flat. If your kid goes to school and plays trumpet, they're going to give him a piston-valve B-flat -- that's the standard trumpet. When your kid finally comes to Juilliard, and starts to play orchestral music, we say you need to think about a C trumpet.

When your kid gets halfway through Juilliard, we say you need to start thinking about a German trumpet, either B-flat or C. The playing mechanics are the same, in terms of what you do with your mouth and with the fingerings. (But) the valves are like French horn valves -- they're rotors, they're not pistons.

Instrument Profile
Player's Primary Trumpets: Two C trumpets, both "Bach Stradivarius," Model No. 229
Made: The Bach Corporation, Elkhart, Indiana
Made of: Silver-plated brass
Purchased: One in 1975, one in 2000
Cost: 1975, about $1,100; 2000, about $2,000

What's the history of the C trumpet you use for most of your orchestral playing?

I'm in a crisis right now. My C trumpet -- my baby -- I bought in 1975; it was one of the trumpets I got when I first went to the Chicago Symphony. And I know that baby, I know everything about that horn. It's worn in. It's comfortable, like an old coat or a favorite pair of shoes -- it bends in the right places.

In one sense, a horn gets better with age, because it loosens up and begins to vibrate. But like all things, it wears out. It can almost be blown out. Some people will have the same instrument for a lifetime -- and I was trying to do that. But my trumpet, the valves got loose; I had to have them tightened up. The acids in my hand were eating through the metal, so I had to have some patches put on the instrument, and have it re-plated.

When I got the horn back, the workmanship was fantastic - but the quality of playing ... . That horn took a nosedive. It just didn't resonate the way that I was used to it resonating. And now I have got a brand new trumpet that I'm breaking in -- which is the first C trumpet that I've broken in, in 25 years.

It's hard to change. If I pick up a new trumpet to play a concert, it's like, "Oh man, that didn't feel right," or "Crumbs! That was out of tune" -- I'm having conversations with myself that I don't want to have.

What does a new trumpet cost?

Mine is off-the-shelf, from Dillon's Music Shop in Woodbridge, New Jersey. They're upwards of 1,800 bucks -- somewhere in that range. I don't have to mortgage my house or anything.

All trumpets are initially made of brass. The brass can have different contents of copper and different materials, and that changes the sound. Some people like to play an instrument that's made of raw brass; that usually looks kinda ugly -- they get green. You can lacquer the trumpet, which is a clear coat that goes over the raw brass, which makes it look kind of golden. The trouble with that is that the lacquer wears off quickly.
You can cover the brass with silver plate, which is what I usually do. And you can gold-plate the instrument. Gold won't adhere to brass, so you have to put silver on it first, then gold; gold will only adhere to the silver. I like to gold-plate my smaller trumpets because I think it warms the sound: The smaller the trumpet, in general, the more piercing the sound becomes.

Those, basically, are your choices: brass, raw brass, lacquered brass, silver-plated brass, gold-plated brass.

What's required by way of daily or weekly maintenance on your trumpets?

Swabbing it out; keeping it clean. We have brushes, cloths that we pull through the horn sometimes. And we also have spitballs. You can make them yourself: You take a sponge slightly bigger than the bore of the horn, and you just poke it in, then blow it through. It swabs out the inside.

The other thing you do is keep the slides -- all the moving parts - greased so they don't freeze, so you can control your pitch. And you keep the pistons, or the rotors, lubricated with an oil, to keep them moving. You'll see me in dungarees in rehearsals, because I have ruined so many pairs of pants with oil and grease.

How do you maintain yourself?

I'll work out, sometimes, with a breathing bag: We blow up a 5- or 6-liter bag, so we can get the feel of the air coming from our lungs, up through our throat, keeping relaxed muscles all the way up.

Lip care is important. I just did a recording out in New Mexico, where it's incredibly dry. And I had the worst time out there -- I couldn't keep my lips moist enough. And I don't respond well to creams, or waxy lip balms. I can feel almost a muscle in my lip when I'm in shape, and when I put cream on, I sometimes feel that that muscle gets kind of jellied.

How important is dental care to a trumpet player?

Oh, you gotta take care of your teeth. When I was a kid, my two front teeth protruded. My dentist said, "The best thing you could be doing is playing trumpet, because that will naturally put them in line." Poor gum health, chipping teeth -- all of that is a problem for brass players.

Any kind of change in your teeth can be a problem. If you don't like the way your teeth look, and some dentist says, "Oh, I'll just file this down" -- you can lose an octave, just like that. There are great stories of prominent high-note jazz players who have a space between their teeth. That space presents a turbulence with the air stream, which enables them to play up high. And some of these players, not liking the look of that space, had bonding done to make it look good -- and all of a sudden, they can't play.

What happens when you get a cold?

You work through it. The worst thing is to have a bad throat -- the aggravation of the air going through there is terrible. If you've got a thick cold, you can't hear properly - you can't tell about (sound) balance, about pitch; you can't breathe. But I don't like babying things: "Oh, this week I can't play -- I have a cold." Get real. Short of being on my death bed, I will be here for performance.

The average work week for you would be how many hours long, divided in what way?

Basically, we do four rehearsals a week -- two-and-a-half hours each -- and four concerts a week, most concerts being 2 hours and 15 minutes. That's the minimum schedule. We're only guaranteed a day off; we can be called for rehearsals or concerts on six other days.

Our annual season is mid-September through end of May. Then we go on tour for the month of June. Then there are two or three weeks of summer concerts in the parks of New York City, and special festival events in the hall. We're off for nine weeks a year -- nine weeks when the orchestra is technically shut down.

During that time, do you take a vacation from your instrument?

I will usually take two, three weeks off, and put the horn away. It's for mental relief, more than anything else. But there are times when I'll take my horn on vacation with me, just because I feel odd not having it there. I may not even practice it, but it's kind of like it had to be in the car, it had to come along.

My wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary last year, and I surprised her with a cruise. I took a week off of work, but the week I was to get back, I had a fairly substantial piece (to play). So I took my horn on the cruise ship -- and that was weird, wandering the bowels of the cruise ship, trying to find a place to practice. Here it was our 25th anniversary, and I had to say to her, "I'll meet you later at the pool; I've got to get some time in on the horn." She's great about that -- that's just life; that's what I gotta do.

How much do you normally practice?

Usually every day, although I'm not pharasitical about it. I'll miss a day if I feel that physically I need a day off; I'll miss a day for mental health -- if I just gotta have one day to not do this.

When I practice, it could be anywhere from one to up to three hours. I prefer to do that piecemeal. If you're practicing for an hour-and-a-half, and you're playing 55 out of every 60 minutes, you can get to the point where it becomes counterproductive -- you're working against yourself. You start feeling tired, you start missing things. I may "practice" for an hour and a half, meaning I'm in the room for that time, but I'm not playing the whole time. I may play, then I may spend 10 minutes marking the score, or putting on a CD and listening -- "How's that guy do that?"

I didn't used to spend as much time on warm-up or fundamentals as I do now. I'd just toot a few notes, and then bam! I'd be practicing solos. I'll spend more time now doing a little bit of mouthpiece buzzing; some scales and finger studies; some of what I call "bugle slurs" -- wavering notes by using just embouchure (position of lips). I'll do some lip bends, where you "bend" the tone down a half a tone, by in essence flexing your mouth muscles. You're building strength in the corners of your mouth - that's where a (trumpet player's) strength is, right there in the corners and extending to the cheek, where a dimple would be. I probably spend more than 20, 30 minutes a day doing that kind of stuff.

I'm more prone to practice now than when I was younger. When I was younger, it came easier. Now, I just need to practice more. I don't consider myself old -- I'll be 49 in April. But there are physical effects. I don't think my recovery powers are as fast as they were when I was younger. Then, I seemed to have endurance that went forever; now, building up endurance is something I have to work on. And my fingers just don't work as fast as they used to. It's not that they're arthritic -- it's just wear, and the natural state of decay, unfortunately.

But -- we get wiser. In many ways, I don't think I'm as good a player as I was 10 years ago -- but I hope I'm a wiser player. We learn what we've got to do to play our best - and that's my job: to play the best I can.

Do you have a method for learning a new piece of music? Do you use Yo-Yo Ma's method, where you master each measure before going on to the next?

I don't do the Yo-Yo Ma Method. I will oftentimes try to just play through the thing and butcher it -- and then panic. (Laughs.) And then I will become more methodical and work at it slowly, then get it up to speed. When I get up to speed, I'll go back and play slowly again, for the sake of building endurance. Repetition, repetition -- not bar by bar, but phrase by phrase.

Are you a perfectionist?

I consider myself a perfectionist, yes. That helps you as a young player, because it helps you see your goal: You set a standard and say, "I'm going to achieve that; I'm going to work hard to do that."

Where it can be a detriment, at any age, is when you strive for perfection and don't achieve it -- and then become hard on yourself, and put yourself down. Or you allow fear to come in.

Last night I was practicing an offstage horn solo, from the Mahler Third Symphony -- a beautiful melody that comes from offstage. Last time we played that here -- '97, I think it was -- I struggled on that solo. I "cacked" notes. This was a featured moment -- and I shouldn't have missed those notes.

To me, it was a big deal. It was substandard. No one goes to a concert to hear it fall apart -- people want to hear it perfect. As I saw it, I let down myself, I let down my team, and I let down the conductor. And you can ask my wife: I was ready to hand in my resignation. That's what happens to someone who is a perfectionist.

That (solo) has become a mental point of fear for me, and I don't like that. The Mahler Third is now on the schedule for 2001 -- and I saw that, and the initial thing in my soul was, "Oh, crumbs, here it comes." So I just decided: I'm not going to wait till 2001 to practice it. I'm going to be much more methodical about playing this thing all the time.

You mentioned "letting down the team." How collegial is the orchestra -- and how competitive is it? Do "office politics" come into play?

All of that exists in an orchestra, as it exists in any office. You can feel the heat sometimes when a young player comes into the orchestra, wanting to do the best they can - and sometimes wishing you wouldn't do so good, so that they could get ahead. I think a "principal" can sometimes be arrogant, and that can create a political hornet's nest. Arrogance stinks. And it only gets in the way, whether it's coming from the principal or from the last guy in the last stand. It shouldn't come from the conductor, either.

You're the principal trumpet -- how do you see your role?

Your role as a principal player is to be an encourager to the other members of the section. You want to be an example. You want to be a good colleague, interested in your colleagues -- not just from a musical point of view, but from a personal point of view. I mean, we spend a lifetime with each other, so you want to be a friend.

Above all else, as a principal player you want to be truthful, when you pass on to your section what comes your way from the conductor. You want to be truthful -- but also temper what you say so it comes out in a positive way, in a way that uplifts somebody rather than bashes them.
One leads by unification, not by power -- those that lead by power eventually fall. I have been given the role of principal trumpet in the New York Philharmonic for a little slice of time. I need to be a good steward of the position.

Your church, like others, stresses the importance of good stewardship of one's gifts. Is your trumpet playing a gift?

My trumpet playing is absolutely God's gift. In the beginning, this was a life choice of mine -- but that was only because I was too dumb to know that it was a calling. I mean, it has to be, the way this has worked out -- how I got into Juilliard when I really had no training; how on my first audition, I became a member of the Chicago Symphony; how on my second audition, I became co-principal trumpet in the New York Philharmonic.

Each of us has specific gifts; each of us has specific roles to play -- to lift people up, and to point to God Almighty. One of the roles of being a Christian is to tell people about what Christ has done for you, what Christ means to you. Because of my role as principal trumpet for the New York Philharmonic, I get a big opportunity to go out and mix with young kids, to challenge them, to lift them up and say, "Keep going; work harder."
It's politically incorrect to talk about one's faith -- but you can't live a life without a faith in something. And our kids are being told by the world, it seems, "don't worry about your faith." And I'm out there saying, "No, you gotta think about what you believe, in whom you believe, why you're here - are you just here by some quirk of your mom and dad's unification? I don't think so."

Do you try to get your message out through words? Through example -- how you live your life? Through your trumpet playing?

All of the above. My faith is a relationship with Christ in my heart -- if you've got that song in your heart, it's got to come out. It's part of who I am -- I can't help it, I have to talk about it.

But it's going to come out in my living, too. The truth of what I say, hopefully, is expressed in how I live -- with gentleness, peace, joy, love, kindness, compassion. And as a musician, it is going to be expressed in your music, in how well you play. I don't believe God is into giving high C's, per se -- I think you have to practice. But I do think God can put down a sense of calm and a sense of peace, and allow you to play at the best of your ability.

There's no greater place for missionary service than in the arts. Art is expression of the heart, of God's gift -- and the missionary duty here is to say, "Do you realize where your gift came from?"

Are there as many opportunities as there used to be for young musicians to develop their musical gifts?

You do see the effect of music being knocked out of the public schools. There are so many elementary schools now that don't have bands. When I was in elementary school, we had an orchestra, we had a marching band, we had a concert band. And it was probably the most horrific-sounding thing in the world, but nonetheless, it existed. There are pockets where it still exists, and thank God for that. But it's been decimated.

That's a problem for orchestras. Kids are coming out and not having a musical experience in school -- why, when they become adults and work in the world, are they gonna want to go to a concert? What does Joe Average Citizen really care about orchestral music? Their whole musical experience has been some rapper or some yeller-and-screamer type. If you don't play an instrument, you don't have an appreciation for it.

I see that in the number of empty seats. That's a big question for us (at the Philharmonic) right now: What do we have to do to bring more people in? How can we make what we do more attractive? And are we compromising ourselves when we play pops, or do (concert performances of) "Sweeney Todd?" Those are all tough questions that are seriously discussed.

Many orchestras try to fill the seats by regularly playing the most familiar symphonies, by the best-known composers. After 25 years of playing some of these Classical Greatest Hits, are you ever bored by them?

Absolutely! It's like, "Crumbs, another Beethoven Ninth." We play such a small percentage of what's out there. There are symphonies by major composers that I've still not played. Sibelius symphonies, for example -- I mean, Sibelius used to be a household word, but we hardly play Sibelius anymore. I have yet to play Mahler Eight -- but I've played Mahler's Fifth ad nauseum. We repeat a lot.

What kind of music do you listen to?

I guess my tastes are pretty eclectic: I like contemporary music -- what's termed "easy listening" music. Obviously, I listen to contemporary Christian music. One of my favorite groups is the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir -- I just love that gospel thing.

What's the reaction when you tell people what you do for a living?

Sometimes, you'll get a knowledgeable reaction: "Oh, that's quite an achievement." Sometimes, you'll get the reaction of: "You can make a living, playing an instrument?" We're paid well enough. And to make a living, doing what you love to do -- you can't ask for anything better. It's a blessing.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Blue Trane]

Thanks for posting. I really miss Phil's presence at the Philharmonic but I'm grateful for the past 30+ years. What an amazing player and inspiration for us all.

[mhenrikse]

Trivia question for a dead thread; who else was in the finals when Phil Smith won the NY Phil job in 1978?

[Blue Trane]

[tubbs831]

[mhenrikse]