Coming Soon—My very 1st Solo Album!

So as you may have noticed, there has been very little to no activity updated on my site as of recent years–other than to my Performance Schedule, of course. That is because I have been busy, hard at work on my own very first major solo recording project—soon to be released!

The album will be called “My Classical Passion”, and has really been like a sort of “Mr Holland’s Opus”, if you will—as it has been almost 40 years in the making for me, the last 2.5 of which were extremely focused with intense preparation. It is comprised of pieces that have deeply affected me along the path of my own musical journey of discovery, on which I continue to travel…and hopefully still grow.

Rather than selecting to record typical pieces from within the standard Classical Trumpet repertoire, I specifically chose to use pieces that I felt I actually had something unique, new, or at least different to say on them. I will also warn you that my Classical approach is not necessarily conventionally ‘square’. I have been deeply impacted by the many other types of musical styles in which I have also studied and performed throughout my career, and thus they have undoubtedly tainted, or rather influenced, my sound as well. My philosophy is simple—adopted from the great Duke Ellington—that there are really only 2 types of music: Good and bad. My hope is that you will listen to my record with open-minded ears, give my approach a chance…and find it to be in the former of those 2 categories!

There are 4 different sonic variations on the album—designed to keep the ear interested and prevent everything from sounding all the same:

1) Trpt & Piano (with maybe some Trumpet &/or Trombone overdubs)

2) Trumpet, Piano, & Voice

3) multi-Trumpets unaccompanied (with maybe some Trombone too)

4) solo Trumpet

I played ALL the horns (trumpets, flugelhorns, cornets, and trombones) on this album, and unless otherwise indicated, I also arranged all the music, and programed all the sound effects. I was honored to have been accompanied by a world-class pianist—Svetlana Gorokhovich, and soprano vocalist Jeanette Spoor.

The album was mainly recorded and pre-mixed over the course of year 2015 at Sweatshop Studios in Katonah NY with Shaul Dover, engineer. It was then re-mixed in 2016 at Dirty Canvas/Needle Down Studios in Mt Kisco NY with Joe Costable, sound engineer—with courtesy of Aaron Accetta. I self-recorded all the multi-trumpet unaccompanied tracks, which were then were mixed separately with engineer-Dino Covelli of Mad Machinery in Ossining NY. The entire project was then mastered in late 2016 at Bimperl Studios in Armonk NY with Joe Costable, engineer—with courtesy of James ‘Jay’ Fallon.

from left: Shaul Dover, Jeanette, Peter, Svetlana

As you will hear, my intended design of the album was to appeal to a wide variety of listeners: complex and intense enough for the actual Classical aficionado—but still light and listener-friendly enough for the majority of ‘regular people’ who probably have much other preferred tastes in music. My goal was to make an album that ANYONE and EVERYONE could enjoy and will want to keep in their frequent listening queue…and not be just a onetime pass through. And the music itself is actually healthy for you; it’s intellectually stimulating—audible ‘brain food’ to fuel your mind and to nourish your soul—not merely just typically dumbed-down mindless ‘entertainment’.

I am extremely proud of this album—I went first class all the way on it and spared no expense! With 70+ minutes of music, I think you will find that there is plenty on it for you to musically “digest”. Symbolically from the sun-up of Gottfried Reiche’s Abblasen until the sun-down of Leroy Anderson’s Lullaby, my mind is always busy working on my music. I hope you will enjoy this brief glimpse into My Classical Passion.

–PjB

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