Hi there and welcome to Notes from the Stage,
a show from the musicians of the Calgary Philharmonic.
We're the people playing our hearts out every
week of the orchestra season. I'm Adam Zanatelli.
Usually I play first trumpet in the Calgary Philharmonic,
but today I'm your host and I'm here with Chris
Leslie, Assistant Principal Trombone of the CPO.
Wahoo! Thanks for having me, Adam. Hey, thanks
for coming on the show, Chris. How's this season
been going for you so far? It's pretty good.
No complaints so far. Yeah, it's been a busy
start to the season between, you know, the Bruckner
and then the sci -fi Star Wars show. And then
this opera, it's just, you know, night rehearsals,
night performances. It's really exciting. It
takes a lot of time. Yeah, you know, actually,
to dive right into one one little bit of reality
for us, sometimes, you know, when it's an orchestra
concert, usually we're rehearsing during the
daytimes, you know, during working hours. But
sometimes we're working a lot of evenings. Be
it at the opera which happens in the evening
a lot or any CPO concert that involves the chorus
because the CPO chorus is made of volunteers
Yeah, you know people who have you know day jobs
or other stuff to do so when we're rehearsing
with the choir We're rehearsing in the evenings.
Yeah, and we can get the the really infamously
long day of having a 10 to noon rehearsal 10
to noon 30 rehearsal Followed by a 7 to 10 rehearsal
at night. Yes, just I think we're all expert
nappers at this point. I have Mike my Procedure
down 3 to 5 p .m. Nap time. Oh spoken spoken
by someone who does not have children No, not
at all. Yeah, those split days are tough Are
tough for a lot of reasons, but especially when
you've got at -home responsibilities and kids
to deal with After school and activities and
things it becomes a real challenge real fast
I think at the opera the reason for the evening
rehearsals is might also be because of their
chorus Yeah, I would think probably the opera
chorus. Yeah But that's sort of you know that
that all comes with the job and it's all part
of what we do But you know when we're doing an
opera run for example or any concerts that are
overlapping with other concerts Sometimes we'll
be away from home, you know Yeah, we four or
five evenings a week, you know, sometimes Tuesday
through Saturday. Oh and It's not all bad, though.
I mean, playing trombone, like we just got out
of the Don Giovanni like last month and it's
about a three hour opera. The trombones only
play the last 15, 20 minutes of it. So we actually
arrive at intermission. The opera starts at seven
thirty and we'll all be there by about nine o
'clock. Enter intermission and then we just kind
of sit, enjoy the music, enjoy the performance
until we play our first notes probably at about
nine thirty. Which is, you know, it's part of
the job of playing trombone. And you could say
that it's like, oh, like you're not playing as
much as everyone else, but really you have to
be totally in it up until your first few notes.
And like, you don't get testing notes. Like if
you're entering. So our first entrance is like
a B flat major chord or something, or maybe it's
a D minor chord. I should probably know that,
but you know, you enter on it and it's like,
you just gotta be right in tune immediately.
As you hit it, you don't have the choice of like
fishing for tuning a, the tuning a that happened.
An hour ago is no longer useful. Totally irrelevant.
That's not that's not that's not the A we're
at anymore. I mean it is but Oh, yeah, I mean
things always drift a little bit be it just from
playing You know the instruments warm up or there's
a cold breeze and part of the power Yeah, like,
you know all these things affect the pitch. So
yeah Yeah, by the time you're actually playing
that tuning a from the beginning is not really
relevant anymore But Mozart knew what he was
doing And in that particular piece well No spoilers
for Don Giovanni, but go back to Jim Scott's
episode of this podcast where he talks about
the trombone being a traditional funeral instrument.
Yeah, it's like, I mean, he's like entering through
the gates of hell, basically, or something like
that. Oh, spoilers. Oops. Oh, it's been written
for what, 300 years? I think they can. Yeah.
No, 200. Well, yeah, but the story is. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, it's totally like we come out.
as Don Giovanni is receiving his punishment for,
you know, all of everything he's done. The punishment
is not a trombone section. We really appreciate
our trombone section and they do not feel like
a punishment to us in the orchestra. So, Chris,
in your job, you have to be a bit of a chameleon
sometimes because usually you're playing second
trombone, but your duties require you to step
up and play first sometimes as well. yeah and
even within second trombone i will i promise
i'll get into that but especially even with second
trombone there's so many different jobs a lot
of times with second trombone you're playing
either in unisons or really close to the first
trombones you can play unisons with um first
trombone or harmony or octaves and a lot of times
you're just glued to whatever the first trombones
player is doing but sometimes the first trombones
not playing and the second trombone has to lead
the rest of the low brass and other times the
pairings actually happen where it's first in
bass trombone and second trombone in tuba. Off
the top of my head Rachmaninoff will do that
a lot for us. So yeah that's a little bit of
the role of second trombone so it's a total chameleon
and one of the things I love about playing second
trombone is I get to make the assumption that
if anything's out of tune it's probably my fault
which you know is a great deal of power. If anything
if a chord's not settling right at the start
You know i can sure i can change the placement
of my pitch but i can also change the color of
my note and if you brighten up a note it makes
it more assertive and can act as glue to bring
people together or if you want to darken a note
if i have a really stinky note in a chord and
it's just not going to resonate i can i can back
off on the resonance of the note and it allows
the the chord to ring better so that's what i
love about second trumpet playing is is being
inside of these chords and i I have a friend
who's a trombone player that'll go to our shows
and she always tells me if I did a good job and
she said Trombone sounded great. Jim sounded
great. I didn't hear you and I'm like, yes, I
did my job The ultimate support role. Yes, the
ultimate support role. Yeah, but but I totally
hear you. It's really interesting how pitch and
color Work together to make blend and resonance
and like if the colors wrong the pitch will never
sound Yeah, if the pitch is wrong, the color
will never sound right you there. They're so
linked together Yeah, it's tune ability and then
to continuous to what your original question
is Yes playing assistant principal trombone sometimes
requires me to step up to first So like last
year my major experience with that was playing
nutcracker because we do the one trombone version
of nutcracker And then this year it was the Ravel
piano concerto, which is a beautiful but kooky
little work with only one trombone and one trumpet.
And it has so many chamber music qualities. And
this was further enforced by doing it conductorless
or the pianist was conducting. So it's a really
good challenge for me. Like I haven't had that
role at all this year, let alone being conductorless,
but really having to play more in a principal
role. And a lot of it, yeah, I was kind of playing
like large second trumpet and I was trying to
fulfill that role but it's a total different
mentality like not waiting for you know so much
of playing in the section is like I'm going to
play the note when Jim plays the note yeah my
job Jim starts the note I will be there with
him I don't need to have total independence I
just need to be glued to him but when there's
when there's no Jim to look after me no first
trombone player for me to follow It's really
a mind shift to say, OK, like I have to up my
assertion a little bit, which is a total different
skill set, really. Yeah, totally. And it's fun.
It's also fun to play, you know, with you playing
first beside me. I play with Jim all the time
and Jim's great. But this idea that by playing
with a different person, you get new ideas and
different things, you know, like you and Jim
sound different. No two players sound the same.
So like when we come in on something together
like the solution to make that work. Like we
were talking about pitch and color, right? That
equation of color especially is always going
to be different with a different player. So it's
an exciting change of pace to, you know, kind
of solve the same equations with a different
partner. Exactly. And I also found with that
I was paying attention to you in a totally different
way. Because in the brass section, yeah, we're
always all listening for the first trumpet because
it's where we're going to get the style and articulations
and so much that comes top down from the first
trumpet. But being the only other directional
brass with the first trumpet, it feels very different.
It felt like there's a little bit back and forth
even more, but also the level of detail that
I was able to understand from hearing from you.
being that close is really exciting. And intimidating,
but really exciting. Well, it was fun. I really
enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. So, Chris,
you're a man of many places. Yeah. You grew up
sort of all over the place, right? Oh, yeah.
It's a journey. So I was born in Florida, actually.
We lived there for six months after I was born.
My parents lived there for 20 years before I
was born, actually. But after I was born, six
months in Florida. After that about nine months
in Connecticut, and then we moved to Maine and
then from there Probably in a total aggregate
up until now. I mean, we've always had a house
in Maine since then So we lived in Maine up until
grade two for me. Then we lived in Puerto Rico.
I was exciting I became completely fluent in
Spanish Puerto Rico for two years so grade two
and three in Puerto Rico that's actually where
I started cello lessons and this is kind of a
fun this is a fun story my cello teacher did
not speak English and my Spanish wasn't good
enough to get along so we my whole entire lessons
were in solfege um it's like he would or uh yeah
he would just sing what he wanted me to play
in solfege we'd talk about it it was just a bunch
of playing back and forth and yeah cool that's
so interesting sorry just a sidebar This is a
general audience podcast. Can you quickly explain
what Solfege is? Yeah. Um, I mean, probably the
most accessible access point for Solfege is,
uh, the doe, a deer, a female deer, gray, a drop
of golden sun from Sound of Music. Um, but that's
not for the, for the listening audience. You
couldn't see the hands that we're going, that
we're going. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah. So Solfege
is like the doe, ray, me, fa, sol, uh, tee doe,
um, or see doe if you're using fixed doe. not
to go too far into it, but basically each note
out of the 12 note scale that we kind of 12 equal
divisions of the octave that we use has its own
syllable. And so if I'm speaking with someone
that doesn't speak the same language as me, doesn't
do ABCD, then generally you can agree on la si
do re, which is kind of cool. Cool. That's awesome.
Yeah. And my mom started me on piano lessons
too. So I ended up quitting cello eventually,
ended up quitting piano eventually. But after
Puerto Rico, we came back to Maine, lived in
Maine for another five years. And then we went
to San Diego. So I went to high school in San
Diego. That's the first time I heard a symphony
was the San Diego Symphony. Oh, cool. I heard
their Star Wars pop show, which was pretty awesome.
And that was great. And I was like, this is cool.
I want to go again. So then I went and saw Tchaikovsky
six and the bass trombonist at the time, Michael
Pretty was like a complete beast of a bass trombonist.
He played like this, like I'm pretty sure it
was like a ultra heavy, like solid sterling silver
bell, like 11 inch bell, just like a mean instrument.
But I remember feeling every single note that
he played in my chest. I was like, I want to
do that. Well, it was awesome. So yeah, Tchaikovsky
6 is kind of what did it there. And then I went
to school in Boston after being in high school
in San Diego went back to school in Boston. My
parents eventually moved back to Maine and now
they're retired between Maine and Florida. From
school in Boston, I went to school in Toronto.
I went to the Boston Conservatory in Boston and
I went to the Royal Conservatory or Glenn Gould
School, which is where Adam also went. That's
my alma mater as well. We've got a pretty good
crop of former Glenn Gould students in the orchestra
now. We just hired a violinist from Yes, Jung
Ah and I were in school together. Oh cool, I
didn't realize that. So what was it like going
to Toronto? How was Glenn Gould for you? You
know, I really liked this school. I wasn't super
aware of Canadian music culture or Canadian schools
or anything really, except for I was finishing
undergrad and I wanted to do a grad school. I
wanted to add more training on. So I was just
kind of exploring different teachers, and I listened
to Gord Wolf's solo album, I think it's called
Reflections. Yep, Gord with Vanessa Lee, who
I played with when I was in Toronto, great pianist,
wonderful person to work with. And Gord is awesome
too, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Gord Wolf, principal
trombone of the Toronto Symphony. So I took a
lesson with them, then I auditioned at the school,
ended up going to the school. It was just a great
time. I feel like he was a major contrast to
my previous teacher, who was Norman Bolter, of
the Boston Symphony. Norman Bolter is very right
-brained, right? Left -brained? Which one's the...?
I never remember. It's the more creative, maybe
out there, intuitive... I think it's right -brained.
And then Gord's a lot more methodical, left -brained,
so I kind of felt like I got a good balance from
that. That's great. Different sides of the spectrum.
I think that there's a lot of value in having
teachers with different approaches and different
styles. I know that was something that I really
benefited from in my undergrad and in grad school
because I had teachers who thought about things
and approached things in totally different ways.
So it really let me kind of triangulate on what
works for me. Oh, yeah. So a really great example
of that is I was at a master class with Norman,
probably my second year with him. and we were
talking about articulation and it just in a side
of the master class he was like you want to know
about articulation go uh look at some tree bark
go feel some tree bark and see what it tells
you about articulation so that's what i did and
i was like wow like these big oak ridges on an
oak tree tell you a lot about really beautiful
sustained um articulate to nodo playing that
we would do in an orchestra so like that was
my style of learning in undergrad cool and then
um Then I got to grad school with Gord and he
talks about articulation. He's just like, play
the note long and tongue the crap out of it.
And you're like, OK, well, that works, too. Yeah.
And, you know, there's no there's no wrong way
to talk about it. Right. I think the great players
and great teachers are so often talking about
the same things in different ways because we've
all sort of had to arrive at our understanding
of how we do what we do in our own way. And.
that's shaped by our personalities, by our learning
styles, by our teachers, by the world around
us. So it's really an interesting way to think
about what we do to remember that, oh, there
are so many different paths to doing something
great. Yeah. And two people could be playing
next to each other. I mean, I think a terrific
example of this is I think Dave and Jim, the
other two trombone players, first in bass trombone.
Incredible players. They've been playing next
to each other for 40 years, right? Over 40 years.
I would say that their approaches are pretty
different. Their mentalities as musicians are
pretty different on different ends of spectrums,
but they sound beautiful together. One of the
beautiful things about music is that you can
have a different approach and still reach a similar
place. Just what's going through your head and
Like the way you're approaching the instrument
the way you're practicing might be totally different
than the person sitting next to you and that
really doesn't Indicate whether or not you're
going to play well together. Yeah, which is really
beautiful Yeah, I think if you're you know proficient
and musical and you show up with open ears and
an open mind I think you can collaborate with
just about anyone and I think that the the diversity
of approaches Technically musically sonically
anything like that. I think that that adds richness
Yeah, to to what we're doing. I think that if
everyone if you had an orchestra that was all
let's say there was one person who could play
every instrument and they all did like overdubs
of putting everything all together. I think it
has a certain sort of uncanny sound, right? Uncanny,
you know, because because it's the conversation
that we're having as we collaborate. The conversation
sometimes we have verbally, but just in the way
we listen to each other. And the way one person
phrases something affects the way other people
think about it. That that interplay is something
that breeds life into what we're doing. And we
have to do that every single time we sit down
together in a rehearsal or a concert. There's
no other way to do it. Yeah, exactly. You have
to be the diversity of ideas and the diversity
of approaches is absolutely necessary. And it's
reflected in the orchestra itself. I mean, I
was listening to a Sibelius one that's on our
season. Sibelius has this really cool thing where
he'll combine instruments that you don't typically
hear in other composers. And one of the combinations
I heard is bassoon and flute, like a bassoon
and flute, just an octaves. And like, how beautiful
is that? They're very different instruments.
I mean, the sounds produced in a different way,
they're different materials, different registers,
they have different strong suits as instruments
too. But when a composer like Sibelius has that
vision to have that really kind of wacky but
just beautiful and they bring out the best in
each other like yeah it's one plus one equals
five instead of one plus one equals two totally
yeah Sibelius first symphony is such a great
piece i always look forward to playing it Sibelius
has such a fingerprint in terms of orchestration
and color it's so distinctive he often writes
these like long octaves in first and second trumpet
Like overpass it would be like eight or twelve
bars of just this quiet octave and there's just
something about the way he places it and the
way that it plays against the other material
that is so distinctive because like Everyone
writes octaves for Trump. Like it's not that's
that's not anything. Yeah, they've been doing
that since yeah, yeah since Mozart before so
It feels like a magic trick when you play this
Octave and it's such a distinctive sound in this
context Yeah. You know, it couldn't be anyone
else. The alchemy that happens when you put all
these things together is is just fascinating.
Yeah. Makes me really happy. And it's all about
that's the beauty of the orchestra is bringing
out the best in each other. The brass scene in
any city is made up not just of the professional
players, but also of the amateur players in town,
the people who do it because they love it, the
people who are playing community bands, the people
who are uh coming to so many concerts the people
who are teaching maybe teaching in band classes
but also making sure that they're getting out
there and doing a lot of playing themselves too
different instruments have different opportunities
to sort of celebrate these communities and the
trombone community is lucky to have two events
annually there's of course slide into spring
which has been going for what years decades yeah
yep yep here in calgary and coming up this week
Jingle Bones! Jingle Bones! For the second time,
the second annual Jingle Bones. Alright. Oh yeah.
I sort of brought Jingle Bones to the city last
year, going to school in Toronto. Jingle Bones
is a huge endeavor in Toronto, a huge event,
much in anticipation. I suppose I should say
what Jingle Bones is. So Jingle Bones, in the
simplest terms, is the trombone players of the
city will rent out a bar for the night, or in
our case we rent out the Ironwood in Inglewood.
massive credit is due to Dave Reed. So all that
I did last year, last year was my first season.
I started last September, September, 2023, right?
And like my second week, I asked Dave and Jim
and I was like, hey, guys, when's Jingle Bones?
And they said, what's a Jingle Bone? And then
I was like, well, in Toronto, they do Jingle
Bones. you know, we've rent out a bar for the
night, we all got to play together and invite
all the trombone players, you know, professionals,
amateurs in betweens, you know, the university
students, the university students will come out.
And they're like, Okay, I guess we can do that.
Kind of went on the back burner a month later,
I was like, Okay, so we're gonna do a jingle
bones. And then they're like, Sure, we can do
it. And Dave actually, Dave has a personal relationship
with Patrick McIntyre, the owner for ironwood.
And Dave was the one that set up using Ironwood
as location. So a massive thank you to Dave.
And then Dave also knows everyone in town. So
he compiled the mailing list, the email list
for all the trombone players, and is hugely instrumental
to getting the event going. All that I really
did was say we should do this thing. And then
I mean, you give Dave an opportunity to play
trombone and drink a beer and like he sets it
up. And we have a bunch of books to read the
music from. So I print out these books that probably
have about 50 different Christmas charts in them.
And in Toronto, they have like these legendary
Jingle Bones books that's probably existed for
like 100 years. Yeah, they're like tablets. Yeah,
exactly. and everything's out of order it's like
you want to find the third page to the nutcracker
well it's stuffed in the that's stuffed in someone
else's book yeah so we will we'll have a it's
kind of a trombone christmas party it's a good
time wonderful so when is it this year so this
year it's next monday december 16th at the ironwood
um so patrick the owner is very kind and welcoming
us back after last year after what we did last
year last year we had 45 trombone players. Wow.
That was the record. So my happy moment was,
was we had all 45 of us playing on stage was
meant that the audience was two people. So I
decided to make the audience three people. And
I went back and listened. And there's a very
specific moment that I love so much, where we're
playing something was like Silent Night. And
there's a key change. And right before an E flat,
Dave Reed shouted out E flat. And someone played
in the natural. It was very funny. Beautiful.
Very, very good time. Now, the Ironwood Stage
and Grill in Inglewood is a beloved venue here
in Calgary. For a long time, they played host
to the Primetime Big Band, now the 9th Avenue
Big Band for Big Band Brunches and all sorts
of performances. Many visiting artists coming
through town would play at the Ironwood. It's
a great place, a real gem of Calgary's music
scene. It's really classy venue. It's just cool.
It's got like that. old stagey vibe, and there's
all these big round tables you can set out, you
make friends. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's lovely
in there. And that's where Jingle Bones is going
to be, and you can find all the information for
the details of Jingle Bones. I'm going to put
a link to a Facebook event in the show notes
of this show, so you can check it out there.
find all the details. So a cool thing that we're
doing for Jingle Bones this year that we're starting,
it was actually Patrick's idea, the owner of
Ironwood's idea, is to take a donation to support
Derek Stoll, who's been quite ill lately. So
that's great. That's nice to have. Yeah, it's
nice to have a charitable effect to a otherwise
very silly event. Yeah. And you know, when the
when the whole community is coming together,
it's nice to have a chance to support one of
your own. Yeah, and I should also mention so
last year Jingle Bones was kind of like a trombone
only private function. And we kind of had our
email chain going around. But this year, it will
be open to the public, which is kind of awesome.
Don't expect this is not a professional performance.
I will personally not be playing at my professional
best. I'll be degrading as the night goes on.
But it's a it's a good time. And it's a it's
a really good hang. And where else are you going
to hear like 40 or 50 trombone players playing
Christmas tunes. Probably nowhere else. Not in
Calgary at least. Keep it safely confined to
Jingle Bones. Exactly. I think it is an 18 plus
event. It's interesting to think about who is
an event for. Jingle Bones very clearly is for
the players and it's for the community. People
listening are going to have a great time, but
it's not a serious concert experience in scare
quotes. where like, you know, at a CPO concert,
we're there on stage to perform at the highest
possible level for the benefit of the audience.
Yeah, like that's the point. Right. And I think
that it's always interesting to consider who
an event is for, because most most events are
not like CPO concerts. No, and they don't have
to be. They shouldn't be. Yeah, exactly. Like
if you, you know, I have I have young kids, they're
not old enough to be in school band programs
yet. But they probably will be. And when I go
to those concerts, is that supposed to be at
the highest possible level for the benefit of
the audience? No, no, it's for the kids. The
point is the performing and the learning and
the doing of it. That's the point. Frankly, most
events are like that. And I would even say that
a small portion of a Calgary flow performance
is like that, where I'd say 99 % of it. Yeah,
it's a performance for the audience for the audience's
enjoyment. And that's why we do it. But there's
a really kind of small, beautiful 1 % where we're
doing it. And we are developing together as part
of it. And we're building our own community in
that. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that that
goes hand in hand with with what we do. I think
that we're there to make the greatest performance.
And that's really the point of our concerts.
But you can't help but develop as a player. You
can't help but develop as a section, as a community
of players on stage, working together all the
time and sort of passing through the crucible
of these often high stress, difficult concerts
that we play. So I think it's wonderful that,
yeah, the point on paper is one thing, but you
can have a whole range of benefits. Aside from
that, I think things get really interesting when
you're talking about things like youth orchestras.
Yeah. And like real development programs, because
in a youth orchestra, like I played in Toronto
Symphony Youth Orchestra when I was growing up,
and a lot of the players in that orchestra were
taking music and their instruments really seriously.
They were thinking about, you know, maybe pursuing
a career in it or certainly exploring, well,
what am I capable of doing in this pursuit? And
at that point, you have to start thinking a bit
more seriously. It's not necessarily for the
enjoyment and personal development of a kid,
like a sixth grade band concert is. The flavor
changes a little bit. And when someone in a youth
orchestra decides that they want to pursue a
career doing something, the flavor of that event
really changes for them. Oh, it's so exciting.
I mean, it's really... I haven't played in many
youth orchestras, but like at Glenn Gould School,
the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, which is the
school's orchestra. They do like four concerts
a year. And yeah, it's primarily an educational
endeavor. Sure, we're in a degree -granting program
and we're there to improve and develop ourselves
as musicians. But like, holy smokes, I remember
there's been some concerts where people have
had solos where I've been like, holy smokes,
that's insane playing, which is... kind of one
of the cool things about training orchestras,
youth orchestras is that as it crosses that cusp,
it gets really excited, exciting when a section
or the whole orchestra soloist pops out of being
a student and like realizes like grows their
wings, you know? Yeah, totally, totally. It can
be really magical. Well, before we wrap up, Chris,
I wanted to ask you, you've been in the orchestra
for over a year now, you're surrounded by all
these players on stage and you've gotten to know
a lot of people's playing pretty well by now.
Who's someone who's playing you, Admire? Oh,
man. I really I mean, so many different people,
right? I don't think I'll keep it to one. But
to start, I think first of Alex Cohen, his musicianship
like. that guy is always connecting with people
and like he's connected with me i'm only a second
trombone player and he'll connect with me if
he knows it's only second trombone that's playing
with him or only second and bass his connection
across the orchestra is insane and that's alex
cohen a principal timpanist in the orchestra
yeah absolute beast and then honestly so much
admiration just for my section um it's a lot
of it's a good time especially for uh tom mccaslin
like holy smokes man that guy i i feel like he
has this effect on the orchestra when we're playing,
actually just from the first tuning A, well I'll
be playing the tuning A, Tom comes in for his
A and everything just lines up. I mean one yes
because it's a tuba but his sound has such a
warm welcoming aspect to it that just makes you
want to align with it. Anyone else? I mean honestly
everyone. That's kind of a weak answer is it?
No it's a great answer. It's a great answer.
Oh, and do you know what? I absolutely love David
Sessman's vibrato, the assistant principal oboe
in English horn. His vibrato, it's just like,
it has like this very like operatic quality that
I don't think you hear in a ton of oboe players.
It's so operatic and vocal and I love listening
to his vibrato. Anytime he gets a solo where
he can start on a long note and just do like
the vibrato on it, it's just beautiful. Oh yeah,
like when we played Ravel Piano Concerto. Yeah!
Holy smokes! Yeah, what a treat. What a treat.
Well Chris, thanks so much for coming on the
show, this has been a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks
for having me on, Adam. Notes from the Stage
is an independent production of the Calgary Philharmonic
Players Association. The opinions expressed here
are our own and do not reflect those of the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra. Our thanks to Nathan
Chandler for his technical expertise. The music
you heard on this episode was from the first
trombone quartet by Saskia Upon, performed by
the quartet Sass Rocket and the Splattertones,
led here by Chris Leslie. On our next episode
in two weeks, I'll be talking with Principal
Horn, Nicky Labonte. Talk to you soon!