Edwards

In college, I had a friend that played a Bach 42B that smelled like death. It just about knocked me out when I got near the thing in wind ensemble rehearsals. We made fun of the guy for it, but it may not have been a laughing matter. According to a study released in Chest magazine and reported on ABC News, wind musicians, “may unknowingly inhale mold and bacteria from their instruments, which may lead to the development of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP).”

Doctors say that even though these results aren’t shocking, they aren’t very common. Regardless, clean your horn before it starts breeding Sea Monkeys and Chia Forests. Need more incentive? Take a look at this…

UPDATE: NPR has posted an article that provides more information on Scott Bean, the unnamed trombonist in the ABC News article.

No description is really necessary…

Maybe Joseph Alessi enjoys good football. Or maybe he thinks Jonathan Whitaker is a cool guy. Whatever the reason, he’s taking the Alessi Seminar to the University of Alabama in 2011. Here are the details:

2011 Alessi Seminar
July 29 – August 6
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL
www.alessiseminar.com

If you’re serious about a career in music, we highly recommend you attend the Alessi Seminar, either as a participant or auditor.

Amanda Stewart recently won the associate principal trombone position in the New York Philharmonic. Now she’s being featured in the New York Times. We particularly like the nice shot of the Alessi Model.

No we do not wear sweaters in August in Wisconsin.

It took us a while to get to post this video but we hope you enjoy it.

Edwards and Griego Mouthpieces teamed up to help bring Karol Jan Gajda to the recent ITF in Austin. Only 18 years old, Karol shows some amazing talent! He purchased his T396-A from Music Bertram in Freiburg Germany.

Howdy folks,

I’m proud to announce that my trombone quartet “Rewritable” is being performed by the Stephen F. Austin Trombone Choir under the direction of Dr. Deb Scott this Wednesday, July 7 at ITF 2010 in Austin. The performance takes place at 7:15pm in Bates Hall, Butler School of Music at the University of Texas.

Unfortunately, I am unable to attend the festival in my own home state, for pete’s sake (I’m recording and playing in Mexico City), but I’ll be there in spirit. Please go if you can and support this ensemble. They premiered my piece at the 2009 TMEA Convention and are still not sick of it, even after a year and a half of practice.

On a personal note, I studied with Deb when I was in high school. I learned so much from her and got hip to so much music, literature and recordings, coinciding with me catching the jazz, experimental music and composition bugs. She’s always been supportive and encouraging of whatever I’m going after. I’m lucky to have had her as a teacher. Judging from a few visits to SFA over the past few years, I’d wager that her current students feel the same.

Have fun, enjoy the BBQ and the A/C.

Brian

Karol Jan Gajda of Krakow, Poland, recently won the First Prize in the Markneukirchen Trombone Competition held in Markneukirchen, Germany. He beat 71 other trombonists from 26 countries. We’re thrilled for Jan… and not just because he plays an Alessi T396-A!

For more details on the competition, visit the ITA website.

Howdy Folks,

I’ve been in Tokyo for the past month, playing a dozen or so concerts and finishing up a new recording with Braindreamer, my 10 year old duo with pianist/composer Jacob Koller. We have one more concert this Thursday, May 6. We’ll be sharing the bill with the fantastic duo of pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and trumpeter/composer Natsuki Tamura. Here are the details:

Thursday May 6
Cremonia Studio in Ogikubo
7:30PM
adv. 2000 yen/ at the door 2500 yen
5-22-7 Ogikubo
Suginami-ku, Tokyo 167-0051

Cremonia is 2 minutes from Ogikubo (JR or subway) south exit. Here is the map (in Japanese!)

http://philstone.at.infoseek.co.jp/cremoniatpnew2.html

If you need any extra info, please email me: brian (at) braintone (dot) com

We’re both doing duo sets with separate grand pianos. Seems like some 2 piano/2 horn quartet excitement is in order too. I played with Satoko 4 years ago at The Stone in NYC with her NY Orchestra and before that as a duo at University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Both were truly special and memorable events. If you don’t know their music, visit Satoko’s website.

Braindreamer is the new name for the duo, originally called Brainkiller. Brainkiller has permanently morphed into a trio with drummer Hernan Hecht so we’ve given each group a separate identity.

For more about Braindreamer, including live and new audio and video material (audio/video), visit www.braintone.com/braindreamer. Also, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-L7Oz0smaw to see a short “making of” video of our upcoming album “bAtOnQ”.

We’re planning a fall US tour for the new CD release. Please drop a line if you’d be interested in having us perform and/or give a workshop. Performance opportunities are increasingly rare for us. Jacob lives in Tokyo now, playing and teaching like a madman (his new Chopin piano trio CD on the Japanese label Omagatoki is getting gobs of attention here and truly is off the chain, I must say).

Thanks, as always, for your interest.

Brian Allen

Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty, is certainly making a name for himself. A few years ago, he was featured on an episode of the NBC series Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip. He is appearing on the HBO series Treme (Andrews grew up in the famous neighborhood). And his latest CD, Backatown, is getting attention from publications like Entertainment Weekly and USA Today.

Starting at 3 pm (Eastern US daylight time) today, you can hear an interview with Andrews on NPR’s On Point. Check it out, and then buy his CD!

Update: We just received artwork of Troy and his Edwards Gen3X Trumpet to be featured on the sides of Canal St. streetcars in New Orleans through May 15.