Legend:

Webster's dictionary defines it as "a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated" or "an extremely famous or notorious person, esp. in a particular field".

Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic, has achieved such status in the trombone world. First of all, he can be called simply by "Alessi" and everyone knows exactly who you are talking about. There is only one other trombonist in the world today where this is true: Lindberg. I first heard Mr. Alessi at the International Trombone Festival in Boulder, Colorado and then the following year at Potsdam, New York. When I tell the story of that day it seems almost impossible: Alessi played a full recital with the trombone quartet Four of a Kind, then did a masterclass where he played a lot for students, and in the evening, he played concerti. It's hard enough to do one of those things in a single day, but to do all three? It was legendary.

With his most recent recording, "Visions" with the Columbus State University Wind Ensemble, Alessi shows why he will be remembered. The album contains fantastic recordings of both Bert Appermont's "Colors for Trombone" and Eric Ewazen's "Visions of Light".

Go get it!

Link to iTunes Store

I love finding new music! iTunes is amazing to me; I can look for artists really fast and then have their music with me on my computer or iPhone in seconds. This is especially great for us classical musicians. Sometimes it can be a real pain finding a recording of a piece we are working on. Simply enter the composers name and *BAM* you have ten recordings to check out! Sometimes I just type "trombone" in the search field. This time I discovered a trombonist that I had not heard of prior to Saturday: Jesper Juul Sorensen. Mr. Sorensen is Principal Trombone of the Danish National Radio Symphony. He has had a few other recordings, but I can't seem to find them. On this recording we find a great recording of the Launy Grondähl Concerto - without stuff taken up an octave ala Lindberg or Alessi. Everything is as written! Students should pick this one simply based on that alone! The other pieces on this recording are: the Vagn Holmboe Concerto, Hyldgaard Soren's "Concerto Borealis", Axel Jorgensen's Romance, Op. 21, and his Suite, Op. 22. Each of the pieces are of the utmost quality in performance and recording quality. Check it out!

Link to iTunes Store

Well, mixed emotions today....I am usually the champion of all things Apple. Today I died a little inside. On the other hand, I am ecstatic! Most classical musicians know that almost anything put out on the Deutsche Grammaphone record label is a quality product. Today, DG launched their own digital download service. Right now, hundreds of albums are available online and within weeks, thousands. This is the first digital download service that allows you to download a single movement of a symphony (still, you now you should get to know the entire work, right?). The pricing for a single movement is either $1.29 or $1.99, which is a whole lot of music in the orchestral world! The files are non-DRM protected MP3's ripped at 320K, so the quality is superior to iTunes and you get a pdf with liner-notes even if you download a single track.

Dear Apple,

This is how it's done!

Signed,

me.