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The Trombone Retreat
The Trombone Retreat
Brittany Lasch on Cats, Beta Blockers, And Parking Garage Wagner
What if confidence isn’t a mystery, but a practice you can schedule? We sit down with trombonist and educator Brittany Lasch to explore how a teen who left high school early for Manhattan School of Music became a sought-after soloist, Detroit Opera principal, and assistant professor at Indiana University. From a Star Wars spark to deep mentorship with Per Brevig and the late Steve Norrell, Britt shares how fundamentals, buzzing, and musical curiosity shaped her sound—and how honest conversations about performance anxiety, including the careful use of beta blockers with medical guidance, unlocked the ability to perform under pressure.
We dig into the real engine of growth: reps that matter. Weekly mock auditions, steady coaching, and deliberate listening create familiarity that quiets nerves. Britt explains why younger players who live in that cycle often win, and why today’s students must go beyond playlists to know the repertoire, orchestras, and players by name. We also zoom out: a pandemic-era Götterdämmerung staged in a parking garage, a life lifted by animal rescue (yes, that viral Dodo feature), and a marathon habit that translates directly to stage stamina. Endurance, boundaries, and identity beyond the horn keep the work sustainable.
You’ll hear practical strategies for managing auditions, teaching insights from the IU studio and its selective trombone choir, and new recital repertoire worth adding to your list. It’s a warm, candid tour of a modern brass career: part orchestra, part soloist, part studio leader, and wholly grounded in resilient habits. If you’re ready to build confidence the reliable way—one thoughtful rep at a time—press play, subscribe, and share this with a friend who needs a nudge.
Also introducing special features with Patreon: www.patreon.com/tromboneretreat
Learn more about the Trombone Retreat and upcoming festival here: linktr.ee/tromboneretreat
Hosted by Sebastian Vera - @js.vera (insta) and Nick Schwartz - @basstrombone444 (insta)
Produced and edited by Sebastian Vera
Music: Firehorse: Mvt 1 - Trot by Steven Verhelst performed live by Brian Santero, Sebastian Vera and Nick Schwartz
Thank you to our season sponsor Houghton Horns: www.houghtonhorns.com
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Often imitated, never duplicated. Welcome to the Trombone Retreat, podcast of the third Coast Trombone Retreat. Today on the podcast, we are welcomed by Indiana University Assistant Professor Britt Lash, soloist and doer of all things. My name is Sebastian Vera, and I'm joined as always by Nick Schwartz. Nick, it's Halloween. Uh I need like a Halloween hot take.
SPEAKER_02:I think Halloween has been ruined by young people. Isn't it only for young people?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean I guess I mean like college-age students that's young now. Have they ruined it? Say more. Just alienate our entire fan base.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I used to I used to when I was in college, I used to go down to the village parade, the Halloween parade, and there's been like so much violence at it lately that it's been like ruined. You know, it used to be like a super fun time, and now it's like dangerous to be down there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, it maybe it's because you live in New York City. Well, maybe. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe it's not that hot of a take, but it's a take.
SPEAKER_01:Man, maybe in the YouTube video we can do a display of all the uh Halloween costumes that you wore at Juilliard. Oh god. That could get me in trouble, maybe. You don't want you don't want to talk about Tinkerbell and I was Tinkerbell, yeah. That mid drift. Oh it was a very uh very accurate take on Tinkerbell, let's put it that way. Wow. Okay, cool. Well, I think everyone's is imagining that now, so that's what we want. Britt, no one knows you're here yet. Shh. I'm just kidding. Yeah, we're we're we're super excited. We're actually recording a new format today, so we're excited to try that out. Sorry, why do we always we don't have to apologize? You know what? We're gonna make a podcast when we feel like it. So congratulations, you're getting a Halloween podcast that might not come out. Spooky scary. Close to Halloween. We also want to thank our sponsor, How and Horns. JSV Tenor Trumbone Mouthpieces are available exclusively at Houghton Horns, made in very limited batches, and I'm honored to say, now being played in major orchestras all over the world. They are unmatched in response, purity married with depth of sound and clarity of articulation. You can experience the difference for a 15-day notarisk trial at howtenhorns.com.
SPEAKER_02:Well, now I guess the secret's out, but hey Brit, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, so it's like you're in Bloomington now, right? So it's like peak most beautiful time of year, right?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, the tree in front of my house is bright red. And I know we're gonna have like one day with it before the wind just makes it bare.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. That's the thing. It never la maybe that's why we appreciate it so much, but it never lasts as long as you as we want it to. But the area of the world you live in is one of the most beautiful places for autumn for sure, right?
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. And I don't know, Bloomington has just so many trees in general, much to the sm dismay of my wallet having a bunch of them on my property, but it's really pretty here.
SPEAKER_01:What do you mean? Do you have to clean up leaves all the time?
SPEAKER_00:Clean them up all the time, and we have some pretty wild storms here, and I've only been here two and a half years, and I've spent a couple thousand taking care of tree damage. Now, knock on wood, none of them hit my house, but I yeah, I've just had massive trees come down. Actually, last year the entire city became just crippled because we had a uh micro burst, so we had 75 mile an hour winds for about 10 minutes, and you can imagine what that would do to a town.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Yeah. Yeah, arborists are not cheap, and you know, rightfully so, it's very dangerous work. But yeah, I was actually I I spend every summer out in Tahoe, and people I was staying with, they were getting their property survey uh surveyed to they had to remove certain trees that were considered like if they didn't remove them, they were gonna lose their fire insurance because they're considered hazards. And they said it was the quote that they got to remove these trees, it was like six trees or something like that. It was gonna cost them like$200,000. It was crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, that's insane. Yeah, I mean prices, these were huge trees, though.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, man, we majored in the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00:That's what I think every time I hire someone for the house.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Plumber. Oh my god, plumbers. My my nephew is brilliant and he could go anywhere to college, but he's already decided he wants to be an electrician right when he graduates. I'm like so smart. Do it, man. That's good money. Yeah, I'm gonna borrow money from him someday. Well, okay, so Brit, we call you Britt, because we're in the inner circle and we're cool, but like if you're just a person who's never met her before and you walk up and say that, I don't know if that's very nice, but be careful. But Britt, you're you grew up in in Illinois, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right outside of Chicago.
SPEAKER_01:You're back to the Midwest. Back to your Midwest reviews.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I have been, yeah, because actually Bowling Green is closer to Chicago than Bloomington is.
SPEAKER_01:You just did some a little East Coast for school and now you're back in the heartland. Is that kind of always where you wanted to end up, or is it just kind of where the wind blew?
SPEAKER_00:Kind of where the wind blew. That's kind of been my entire life. Just kind of making plans and then something else happens. But no, I like being back here. The people are they're kind of my people, but I'm so far south in Indiana that you get a little bit of the twang down here. Really? And that's weird to me to talk to the locals. Yeah, there's like a little local Bloomington twang. I mean, Kentucky's like an hour away the border.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. South central Bloomington. Yeah. The mean streets. Okay, cool. Yeah, because I met you when you were at Manhattan school and I was at Manis. You were there for undergrad, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You like I remember I always called you like Doogie Houser or something because I remember didn't you start undergrad like early or something?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I did. I did.
SPEAKER_01:What how did that come about?
SPEAKER_00:I really like a challenge, and so when the high school people came to my middle school to talk about what was gonna happen in high school, they basically said something to the effect of you can graduate high school as soon as you finish all the credits you have to do. And I was like, Bet I'm gonna do that early. And I want to go move to New York, and so I just finished in three years. I'm not particularly smart, I'm just very crafty and like a challenge.
SPEAKER_01:You're like, get me out of high school.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, basically.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they try they try to keep me in high school because I was the opposite. I didn't do any of my homework. Oh yeah. I was uh I was on the wrong side of the GPA spectrum, let's put it that way.
SPEAKER_00:But you got out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, I was just below a 2.0.
SPEAKER_01:They're like, you're not very smart here, play this. Make big loud low sounds.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it used to piss off my parents because uh I did my senior year at interlock and they'd get my report cards and it'd be like all F's in a C, you know? And then they'd find out I wasn't like skipping class to go like you know, smoke pot in the woods or something. I was like in a practice room, and so they were like mad, but at the same time, it's like, well, he's doing something productive. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, good for you. It worked out.
SPEAKER_01:Were you like were you like really proud of that one C? You're like, look, mom. Well, I'd be like, well, it's up from a D, you know.
SPEAKER_00:C's get degrees.
SPEAKER_01:D is for diploma. Yep. So I read in my Brit Lash research that you before the trombone, uh, it was violin and guitar first.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How did how did that that all start?
SPEAKER_00:There's only one other family, sorry, only one other family, only one other family member who's a musician, and that's my mother's brother, my uncle. And so he's a guitarist, and he got me one for Christmas when I was about five. So I took lessons with him weekly, and then violin started because they introduced the orchestra program first in the fourth grade. And I was a terrible violinist, and everyone tried to show me that. Luckily, the next year the trombone was introduced, and it got a little bit better.
SPEAKER_01:Violin is so hard at a young age.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Well, I was too old to be honest. I think eight, like I was in youth orchestra with people younger than me when I was eight, so that wasn't working.
SPEAKER_02:And they've been playing for like years. Correct. Hey Britt, we have something in common. We both started on guitar.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah? Do you still play?
SPEAKER_02:No, I can play La Bamba.
SPEAKER_01:Same.
SPEAKER_00:Good for you.
SPEAKER_01:That would have been a perfect opportunity to like reach behind your back. Well, I'm so glad you asked.
SPEAKER_02:I wasn't prepared for this. Well, that was like what when we had David Binder on, he played his little banjo.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Oh, that's cute. Yeah, I forgot about that. Oh man, can you still play either of you?
SPEAKER_00:Barely guitar, but I have a crappy student violin I bought a few years ago off of Facebook Marketplace just to you know check it out. And I'll practice like once every couple months, but it sounds so bad, it physically hurts me. And then also hurts my fingers and my neck and everything. And I'm just like, okay, that was fun. I'll see you again next year.
SPEAKER_01:Is it one of those like Facebook Marketplace finds where you're just like, okay, that's just like so dumb, dumbly cheap that I have to buy it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it's an acceptable quality one, but it was so cheap, and I was just in the right mood, so I went and got it.
SPEAKER_01:That sounds like a pandemic purchase.
SPEAKER_00:Right after it, 2021.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So well, tell us a little bit about like your, you know, started you started at nine, but violin and guitar first. Like, tell us about like, you know, how you found music, how you started, and how you came to wanted to study it for school.
SPEAKER_00:I think Star Wars is to blame, and I know I'm not unique in that. My dad got the episodes four, five, six on VHS for his birthday around the time that the band program was showing us the instruments, and I was infatuated with Star Wars. And then the band director played Star Wars on the trombone, and as my mom very proudly liked to share at one of my recitals, allegedly I came home and said God told me to play the trombone.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, wait, so then I just You thought your band director was God?
SPEAKER_00:No, I thought Jacoby for you out there. But no, I like just like some kind of like message, like why would he play of all the things, why would he play Star Wars? Little did I know like how actually big Star Wars is for brass. But that was just a weird coincidence. And I think it was like in the span of a week that I saw Star Wars, and then I heard Star Wars on the trombone, and I was like, oh, that's the instrument that plays that. I want to do that. And yeah, I was a lot less bad at it than violin, so I stuck with it.
SPEAKER_01:I wonder how many less brass players there would be in the world if like John Williams and Star Wars wasn't a thing.
SPEAKER_00:I truly wonder, because I've heard a lot of people say similar things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's su it's so married to pop culture, and it's such like a sense of pride, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks, John Williams. He's never gonna die. He's gonna live forever. He's gonna write like 20 more movie soundtracks.
SPEAKER_02:He owes us he owes us a Friesman Carbonite, yeah. He owes us a trauma- He owes us a Tramon concerto.
SPEAKER_00:He really does.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, God. Yeah, it would be very hard. It would have a lot of triplets and syncopation and double tonguing and heroic.
SPEAKER_00:We got it.
SPEAKER_01:Except like his concerto's like typically don't sound like what we're expecting, right? Like the tuba concerto and stuff. It's not like you wouldn't automatically know it's John Williams.
SPEAKER_00:No, he's got a very different contemporary compositional voice when he's not writing for movies.
SPEAKER_01:Didn't he didn't he write a bassoon piece too?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know about that. I know the violin one.
SPEAKER_01:There's horn. Man. Okay, well, this concludes John Williams' talk. Uh well, cool. So why music?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I wish I had a better answer. Again, it was just kind of the thing I was good at, and like the more my high school teachers exposed me to Christian Lindbergh and Alesi, and I did grow up in Chicago under the shadow of the CSO and all those folks, and I thought that was really cool. I just was a young teenager and I was like, I want to get out from here. Chicago's cool, but I want to go to New York, and I just kept going after it. And uh yeah, there wasn't a moment that I thought to myself, this is what I want to do. It just kind of felt like part of my identity growing up, so how could I not pursue it?
SPEAKER_01:Man, yeah, I get that. And I think that's we say that's not a good reason, but maybe that's the best reason. You're good at it, and it stimulates you. That's a good reason to do something, you know? Why not? I imagine gosh, and so were you 18 when you moved to Manhattan? 16. You started early, remember? Oh, I didn't realize it was 16. What's it like being in New God, your parents must have been so scared. They're the best. What's it like being a I mean, it was tough. I moved to New York, gosh, how old was I? I was like 22 or something. Um I think you're older. I think you're 23. 23, something like that. That was tough at that age. I mean, that must have been overwhelming.
SPEAKER_00:It kind of was, but I think looking back, I could only have done New York for that degree when I was that young because I didn't know any better. And I was just like, this is the way it is, and I'm just gonna try my best. But if I moved there older, knowing more, I probably wouldn't have survived. And I kind of look at the people that were in my class at MSM, like one year before me, my class, one year after me. And for better or worse, it kind of looks like you either made it or you're completely out of music. And I'm not saying New York is a healthy environment, but at least for me, it felt like if you survived the fire, you got somewhere with a little bit of trauma, or you were like, I'm done, I'm done with this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I also I think like Manhattan School, where it's located, it's like you're obviously in New York, you're in Manhattan, but it's like it's tucked away on that, especially the dorms, they're like tucked away on that on Claremont. It's like a little bit more quiet and secluded in a way. I think that's a softer introduction to New York than like Manis or Juilliard, because they're both like right in the thick of it, you know, especially where Mannis is now, it's all the way downtown.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good point. I didn't think of that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Man, so but I imagine it. I mean, you'll grow up pretty quickly in that kind of situation, for better or worse. But also I imagine since you're you know you're 16, it's not like you're going out every night. Like that that's some of the hard parts for a young person, is like New York is amazing, but it's also full of distractions. And if you're gonna study something, it can be you gotta really be focused. But if you're 16, I imagine, did you kind of just like live at the school?
SPEAKER_00:I kind of did, and I'll admit, uh similar to you at Interlock and Nick, like I was a bad student my first year, and I was blowing off class to like go to concerts or to practice with people. I got it together my second year. The school kind of took a little pity on me. Like, actually, my age kind of helped when I failed a class simply because I just didn't go to it. It was my one non-music class, and I really learned a valuable lesson, and I'm so glad that it happened to me in retrospect, but it was absolutely terrifying to find out that you had an F on your transcript and you're gonna lose your scholarship, which basically meant you couldn't go back. I got them to take me back, I was really glad, but at the same time, I am glad for all the older grad students who kind of took me under their wing and we would play excerpts until the security guards would kick us out, and so I feel like I got a huge chunk of my education from my older peers.
SPEAKER_02:Well, were you there? Oh, I'll I'll go into that next question in a second. I was gonna say one time I go in for a lesson with my teacher, Don Harwood, and he's like, you know, this is before like title mind stuff, because now I don't get any information about my students' grades. You know, apparently they used to send if we were in trouble in class, they would send notifications to your private lesson teacher. And so I come into a lesson and Don Harwood is like I it took me a little bit to realize he wasn't mad that I was failing a class, he was mad that there was some something bothering him in his mailbox. He's like, I just don't want to know anything about this, basically, you know, like just stay out of my mailbox. And I was like, Yeah. But I was gonna ask, uh, were you at Manhattan school at that time when they had the mista they had they made a mistake and like accepted like 10 base trim home players?
SPEAKER_00:That must have been after or before meeting.
SPEAKER_02:No, because of that was when James Rogers was there.
SPEAKER_00:Just oh, that must have been before me because James was there, but I think he was kind of done with school by the time I was there.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:This was 06 when I showed up.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so yeah, it was before you. Because I just remember at some point there were like 14 bass Roman players at Manhattan School. It was like it was really strange. Anyhow, I just was wondering, I can't I couldn't remember the timeline that you were there.
SPEAKER_01:So so you were really close with and and you studied with the late Steve Norrell, a longtime bass Romanist of the Metropolitan Opera. What was that experience like starting? I mean, it must have been almost like a father figure at that starting at that age, I'd imagine. What were some of the biggest messages and takeaways that you remember from studying with him?
SPEAKER_00:Well, actually, I came to MSM to study with Pear. I had studied with Pear the year before at Aspen, which I should not have been accepted that young, but that was really fun.
SPEAKER_01:You're just bucking the system everywhere you go.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, now they don't let you go if you're under 18, I think. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01:Probably a good idea.
SPEAKER_00:I think they changed it because they had the special underage dorm for us at Aspen, and there was only one night the entire summer they actually checked on us, and thank goodness that was the one night I was in my room.
SPEAKER_01:I hear Aspen has kind of turned into like the party festival. So I imagine 16-year-olds is like probably not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00:It was 15. It was not good to have me there. I think, yeah, my roommates were like 14-year-old violinists. Oh, good. So they were like, what's the trombonist doing here?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I did underage at EMF, rest in peace, but the they also had an underage dorm, but they messed up and they put me in the of age dorm, and I didn't have a roommate. So I was like, Oh no, it was the best summer. It was awesome.
SPEAKER_00:You get it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was great.
SPEAKER_01:But you started with Pear.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, I started taking some lessons with Steve on the side because I was hanging out with people like Josh Kopeis and Steve Nugget and Pat Herb, and they're like, No, he's he's the teacher. And I enjoyed my two lessons. And yeah, and then Steve and I had a great relationship with me. He got me into opera, obviously. I went to a lot of concerts thanks to his encouragement, and he just got me a little bit more out of my shell, playing more musically. He's he really got my fundamentals solid, and he really pushed me in a very positive way that I wanted. So, for instance, when I first studied started studying with him, I was so excited, I was so inspired. I was truly doing six hours a day, like on the weekends, I would like to clear, and he found out about that and he was like, no, here's how you're gonna actually practice. He taught me those kind of things, and I would remember working all week on one of those bloom f attachment A2s, and there'd be like a pedaly flat, and I'd just work all week, I'd play it for people, and I'd come in and I thought I nailed it, and he'd do one of those. I like what you're trying to do. Yeah, I'd be like, oh my god! That was the way to motivate me because if someone like screamed at me and told me I sucked and I had no hope, like that wouldn't have got me to practice harder. But the like, I almost made you proud, like totally destroyed me.
SPEAKER_01:Subtle disappointment, so much more powerful.
SPEAKER_02:Truly. I have such a strong image of being in a room and Don Harwood facing, looking out the window with his hands behind his back, and 10 seconds of silence felt like a minute, and he just goes, you know, I expected more, Nick. And I'd be like, ah no. The disappointment is much more powerful, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, do you find yourself like I mean, I'm of the belief that we're all somewhat a product of our I mean, a lot of a product of our teachers, and we often instinctually will teach first how we were taught, you know, and focusing on the things that that we're we had trouble with and that kind of thing. Do you when you teach, do you find some of like because you studied with Scott Hartman, Toby Off, Steve Norrell, Per Brevig, like do you find some of these things coming out of the way you teach sometimes?
SPEAKER_00:At the weirdest moments, yes. And I'm always grateful when that happens, but I'd like to think that I'm some version of my own amalgam of all of them. But yeah, and I still teach out of the F Attachment book because I found that book to be so useful and all the buzzing down the octaves of the Bordoni. I mean, Steve really got my low range to happen, and then because of that, a high range could happen.
SPEAKER_02:I think you could consider Steve, or you could have considered Steve like a buzzing addict almost. Yeah. I sat I sat next to him for a number of years in the pit at the Met, and before every show, he's buzzing something, you know. And he was and I took lessons with him too, and buzz sing, the whole Jacobs thing, very ingrained in that man.
SPEAKER_00:And his death kind of hit me hard because I didn't I kind of lost track of with him the last couple years, you know, he was sick and it was hard to get a hold of him. So I never I emailed him about IU, but I never heard Benton, so I didn't know what was going on. But he was the first professional in my entire career to talk about performance anxiety and beta blockers. And because when I first got to MSM, I bombed the placement auditions, even though they're behind a screen because I was shaking so uncontrollably and uh just couldn't play. And so he presented beta blockers to me, and I at that time thought it was cheating, and I was like, this is steroids. And he basically explained it imagine you're in the finals of a major audition, and the other two finalists both have children who need health insurance. You don't think they're gonna take any advantage to play their best to get that job? And that kind of switched my brain around, and I had honestly immediate success after I started taking them just to calm myself and play as well as I could. So without that, I actually could see a future where I quit the trombone because it was just so overwhelming. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Good for him for talking about it. I had a conversation a couple years ago because it came up in a lesson for me for with one of my students, and a very well-known person in the field. I don't want to dox him or anything, but he's like I he said, I find that highly unprofessional to talk about with a student. And I said, But we all know people who take them, we take beta blockers, you know. Performance anxiety is real just because we pretend it's not there doesn't make it go away. And uh good on this person, he came back to me a couple days later and he said, You know, I've really rethought what you've said, and I think that we should talk about it more. We shouldn't just sweep it under the rug. And he's of that same generation of Steve. And I think it's kind of uh unusual for people of that generation to be open about performance anxiety issues, I've found. So good for the Steve.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good point.
SPEAKER_01:So Steve was your first drug dealer. That's cool.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, actually, though, you don't you guys don't know about this. No, I thought about Steve. I have been called a pill pusher. Okay, so there's this great trombone day at JMU called Trumblowin. And I was really lucky to be the guest last year. And they wanted me, I did like a masterclass for the studio. The next day was the big event. They were like, Do you want to present something? I had this like hour I could do whatever I wanted before the concerts I played later in the day. And I said, Well, let me give this presentation I've given a number of places on performance anxiety. And I've like gone and read studies, I've read music education journals. It's a little academic, but I presented it in a hopefully open and inviting way. And I talk about what it does to the body, different types of it. I mean, there's studies done on MPA, musician performance anxiety, and how it affects different instrumentalists, all this kind of stuff. But out of 35 plus slides, I have two slides about beta blockers. The first slide is here's what the drug is, here's its on-label use, and here's what it is prescribed by doctors for. The second slide is here's its off-label use and how it may help you. But here's also the cons of taking beta blockers. So I do this, it seems well received. At the end of this workshop, they solicit feedback from people who come. Somebody to this day hates me so much. He wrote an entire paragraph about how it was a boo-hoo self-help session. I'm essentially a pill pusher and essentially outed the entire industry as a bunch of druggies. And that's almost a direct quote. And so I was devastated for like two weeks. I thought it was the biggest fraud. I and it was awful those two weeks. And then after that, I'm like, well, that's gonna be my armor now going forward. Screw that guy. You know, probably a weekend warrior.
SPEAKER_02:That kind of proves the point. I was just saying, it's still taboo, which is amazing. I will say I want to take this moment to say this. If you're out there and you're looking at beta blockers, make sure you talk to a doctor because my story is I found out the hard way, I'm actually slightly allergic to them. And I was in the finals for an audition in Finland, and I took a norm a prescribed dose of it, and I fell asleep waiting to go in and play the finals. Basically, what happens is my my body processes it very slowly, so it stays in my body for a very long time, and therefore, like a really small dose ends up being kind of a big dose for me. Wow. And so, you know, I'm I'm I felt nervous in my head, but my body just shut down from basically being drugged by beta blocker. So it took a while to figure out what was going on, but uh ultimately another time I ended up in the hospital because and that's when I found out through genetic testing that I actually have this problem. So, anyhow, Dr. Doctor.
SPEAKER_01:If you would have gone to one of Brit's lectures, you could have just been in the hospital. Like you who knows if you would have gotten out.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I was there and I just found it surprising that there were bowls at every entrance with scoops for just full of beta blockers.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, different different amounts, different milligrams.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you pass around PES dispensers full of beta blockers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can't so not me. I can't take them anymore either. Since my concussion, I every time I take them, even the smallest possible dose, I get an intense what what I imagine is a migraine headache. It's just like this intense pressure headache that lasts like at least a couple days. I remember that, Sebastian. When you were visiting here once that happened. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm pivoting. But yeah, that's really interesting about you know the anxiety stuff, which you know is a very common thing we all face, and it's not a shock being a 16-year-old at a major conservatory feeling nervous for an opening audition. But besides the drugs, what are some without getting overly academic, like what were the biggest things that that you found or books you read or breakthroughs that helped?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think the thing that helped the most was kind of what Steve was trying to get me to do, which is like success begets success. So he wanted me to go do things and have them go well so that I could go do another thing and be a little less scared and another thing. And it's really true. And I think one of the first big things just a few months after I got a prescription was I got invited to be a participant in the Lessie seminar in Italy. So talk about huge pressure, and that went really well. And so that kind of carried me into the next couple years of college, and I did ITA comps, and it just there's no replacement for being under pressure and surviving or hopefully thriving. So you can read all the books and you can do all the hypotheticals therapy, whether it's musician focused or just life focus, can be immensely helpful because a lot of times our performance anxiety stems from something that doesn't actually have to do with the instrument. Either self-doubt or all sorts of flavors of that. But yeah, there's been no one thing that makes me feel better. It's different, and I'm sure you both would agree the performance anxiety if you're playing a Dvorjak symphony or if you're playing Franc D minor, as opposed to a concerto performance, as opposed to a recital. Like those are all different levels, and some of them may not bother you at all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's insane. Like I will literally I've not been nervous in orchestra concert. I can't remember the last time I was. Maybe like when I played Bolero. Um, but besides that, just like sitting, you could you could have like 8,000 people out there and I feel nothing, but then you can do an audition in front of five people and feel like the world's ending. So it's just really fascinating trying to understand yourself and unlock yourself. And I really like that success begets success. So it's like getting that first one might be the toughest thing, and hopefully it gets better and better, but maybe you just have to fight a little bit, or the more you prepare, the more baseline you're gonna have to be successful.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and also you mentioned something, Sebastian, that I think is so true. I think there's a reason why we don't get nervous in orchestra anymore. We play an orchestra almost every day. And so it's like if we played recitals every day, we'd probably be a whole lot less nervous than we do doing them every now and again, right? You know?
SPEAKER_01:How cool would it be, Britt, if we had I mean, first of all, it'd be cool if we had this many jobs available, but if there was an orchestral audition every weekend. I mean, the competition would probably get really good because everyone would be really good, but at least we'd feel less nervous and it's not like the Olympics where you're just preparing for four years, it feels like, for like one 10-minute shot.
SPEAKER_00:That actually makes me think of something that I've been pondering with a few friends in a group chat. So when you're in school, if you're doing things right, you probably should be having mock auditions, either formal or informal on the regular.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we look at a lot of these players, particularly in the low brass world, that are winning auditions that are younger and kind of fresh out of college. And I'm wondering if that's a direct correlation that they're living in this zone where they're doing these mocks all the time, is opposed to someone with tons of experience, but they're sitting in the orchestra and they haven't been under that audition pressure. I know there's exceptions, but it seems like a lot of young people are winning these jobs these days.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Joe Leslie mentioned it's also just getting coaching every week.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I mean, you also the new world people are probably doing mock auditions at that kind of rate and have the ability to, and they're also around a lot of really good players, right? But like yeah, we could revamp a lot of things, right? Because there's so many traditional ways of doing education, but mock auditions every week, coaching, yeah. If you could find a way to do That for professionals that could be yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you mentioned New World the tubo player there, Bridget just won St. Louis. Yeah, I coached down there in April, and I remember saying to my wife afterwards, I was like, This girl, she's gonna land something because she sounds so good. So it's like, but yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. She's down there just grinding and playing for people, playing auditions, playing an orchestra every week, you know. Of course, if you're dedicated like that, and you have an environment that supports that, you're gonna be have a much better chance of success.
SPEAKER_01:It can be a lot of stuff, right? Our worlds, not 100% of our attention is playing an audition the best possible, right? We're performing, you're doing solo stuff, you want to sound good in context in your orchestra in a big hall. But what if 100% of you was on sounding good on this particular excerpt and playing in that certain way, you know, which we all know that an audition is not necessarily the way you play in the orchestra? Yeah, it's a lot of things. It's a fun fascinating topic. We could probably talk about it forever.
SPEAKER_00:Man, how many I guess is my plug for my students to do more models? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How many students do you have?
SPEAKER_00:I have 20 plus the trombone choir. I'm a little overloaded this semester.
SPEAKER_01:And how many how many like trombonists are at IU? Do you know ballpark?
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a total of 32 tenors, and then two of mine are bass doublers as well. So and the numbers are a little I'm 100%.
SPEAKER_02:Alright. Yeah. I know Paul has 17 right now. So that's set. I think does he have all bass Tremone, or is there are there some tenors thrown in there?
SPEAKER_00:He has all bass, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_01:And the Tremone choirs like all the trombonists, or just your studio?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the last two years I've had it. Anyone who wants to join trying to build community and the all the three studios improve overall. So we've had about 20 to 24. This semester I decided to make it audition only just to change it up. So we have 11, and ironically, nine are mine, one of one of the bases and eight eight tenors. But uh one base is Paul's and one tenor is from the other studio. So it's just how the auditions panned out and who was interested, but I'm really thrilled because they're really kicking butt. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that makes it a little more if you want to do competitions and stuff, that could make it a little more competitive, right?
SPEAKER_00:Defin definitely. That's that was kind of my goal, because in previous years I would take a smaller group from the bigger group, and that's just too much time and energy. So I was like, let's have the same people play everything. And we have a program actually on Mondays or a concert, and it's probably the most adventurous trombone choir concert I've ever conducted. So I'm very excited. And they're nailing it.
SPEAKER_01:What's like the hardest stuff you're doing?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we got the white sands, the ITA competition piece. Luckily, the other piece we know, because I commissioned it, it's the Adrian B. Sims Rise of the Fallen Star, which is such a cool piece. But we also got Verhelst, is it pronounced Heroes?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:One of those Yeah, it's an absolute banger. And then I only listen to a song for Japan songs. And now we know your taste.
SPEAKER_01:No, like our theme song for the Trombone Retreat is Verhelst. Yeah. It's uh Firehorse for it's for Trombone Trio.
SPEAKER_00:That's okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's me, Brian Santero and Nick playing. That's true. I contend that one crack note you hear on the intro every time is Brian, but it's probably me, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_02:I know who it is, but I'm not gonna say it's Nick.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely not me. For once, it's not me. It's probably me because I was playing passionately. Um well that's cool. Okay, yeah, we're we'll we're jumping around. I mean, we could talk about No, it's me, my fault. I mean, I'd rather talk about these topics because I mean your resume is awesome, and I'm so proud of you, especially since I've known you for so long. But you've gone from you got your doctorate and then you um you're a are you still with Astral Artists?
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm with a new company now.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so you still have someone like booking solo engagements and stuff. So that's awesome. Is that so is being a soloist, is that something that was always like really important?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and no. I think like I mentioned everything about my career's kind of been I've planned something and then this alternative opportunity opened up. Like my entire life I wanted to replace Jay Friedman, and ironically, the audition finally happened, and I had no interest in taking it just because of the way my life has kind of panned out. But I always I became enamored with Christian Lindbergh's recordings, but everyone just kind of led me to assume the only path was winning an orchestra job. And so that's kind of what I pursued until the very last day of my doctorate, truly. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So what happened then? How like you say that so specifically? What was the change?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I had some audition success and whatnot, but I had a like a lot more fun doing the competitions. And right at the end of my doctorate, there were two jobs that opened up, and I was a week away from getting the diploma. And so I kind of was like, eh, let me see if I want to do anything with teaching. And I was a finalist for both of them. And I was like, and so then I had I didn't get those jobs, and everything happens for a reason, but I did my gap year between my doctorate and my first job at BGSU. I was freelancing in the Boston area, working a day job at From the Top, teaching middle school beer environment.
SPEAKER_02:From the top. What you do there? I didn't realize I was in Boston.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there were NEC basically. I was one of the admissions directors. I uh processed all their applications, it was kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01:You got to weed out some and like find like the little child prodigies.
SPEAKER_00:Basically.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:And feel very threatened.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're like, this kid is 12, and I hate myself.
SPEAKER_00:I'm working on an office job.
SPEAKER_01:That's always a lovely show, though. I mean, I that's been going on forever.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I because I was listening to that in like high school, right?
SPEAKER_00:It's been a long time. Yeah, I don't know how many years.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I found out about it because Carol Janch was on it when we were at interlocking together, and she wore she played Fight of the Bumblebee and wore a Bumblebee suit. Oh dear. Which is very Carol iconic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Just so you know what this is about. Okay, so you're in Boston. Okay, and then bowling green, uh, you know, just casually win principal trombone in the Detroit opera. You know, doing all the stuff, and of course, like the theme of your whole career doing it at a young age. But now you're in I mean, IU, that's a big deal, huh? I mean, you could be there the rest of your life if you wanted to.
SPEAKER_00:I I don't want to move. I'm tired. No, but I really do love it. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's as we we were saying before the show, I'm coming there tomorrow. And yeah, well, I'll hopefully see you. Um I have nothing really planned. So uh but yeah, my my wife is there conducting, and she went to school there and was on faculty there. So when we were dating, that's where she lived, and I fell in love with Bloomington too. I haven't been back in a while. I love it there.
SPEAKER_01:You have that really good pizza place, right?
SPEAKER_00:Mother Bears, I can see it from my window.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:It was hard to not put on too much weight when I moved here.
SPEAKER_01:You're like leaving after working all day, like, oh, it's still open. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You can smell it like in the air on the street, and it's just divine.
SPEAKER_02:And I say that as a Chicagoan who grew up on Giordano, so I love that they're salad instead of croutons, they use goldfish.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:That's the most Midwestern thing I've ever heard. It's awesome. Oh, yeah. Is that like uh Chicago style? Is it like thicker?
SPEAKER_00:It is thicker. It's not Chicago style, it's kind of its own thing, but yeah, it's really good.
SPEAKER_01:Bloomington style.
SPEAKER_00:It's more Detroit style. Yeah, I guess Bloomington, but it it reminds me of like a cross between Chicago and Detroit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So was it too hard to keep the opera job? I'm sure I imagine you you enjoyed it, but it was some commuting involved.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I loved playing in the opera. That was a fantastic, that is a fantastic orchestra and a fantastic company. At BGSU, it was just exactly an hour from my door to the hall. So that was really an easy commute. And it was like a straight shot that there was no traffic unless there was an accident or a sporting event. Um, but there's a lot of work in that job. You there's like a contract minimum, and that's great, but you can do so much. And I just felt like if I kept it, doing the contract minimum would have killed me because it's a five-hour drive. Oh, and as high as the per service rate is there, like Yay Unions in Detroit, I still would have lost all the money because that orchestra doesn't pay travel because most people are local.
SPEAKER_02:So man. I saw I saw you do the most interesting performance of an opera that I think I'll probably ever see because of the pandemic. Do you remember this? Is that the parking lot?
SPEAKER_00:Were you in the car for the Twilight Guy? That was one of the weirdest, coolest things of my life.
SPEAKER_02:It was really, really creative by you've all uh general director. Do you want to talk about that specific thing, or do you want me to No, you do I didn't see it.
SPEAKER_00:All I was doing was sitting in a parking garage playing the same thing over and over.
SPEAKER_02:So this is a pandemic, and obviously we can't be in person for anything. And so Detroit Opera, I don't know if it if at this point it was Michigan Opera Theater or it had become Detroit Opera, either way, same place, just they rebranded. They decided to put on a modified version of God or damrung in the parking garage. And so you'd go in a car, and they what was being performed was broadcast over like an empty radio station. So you tune to that station, they tell you what station to tune to, and you would see the people performing standing or sitting in the parking garage, but it'd be broadcast into your car, and you'd be at one spot, and it'd be between five and maybe 15 minutes of something, and then you drive up to the next floor, and there'd be another group of musicians, another singers, there was a poet. There was also it was totally reimagined, and so in the ensembles ranged in size from just a trio to I think you were probably in the biggest one, Britt. It was like maybe 10 of you. And it just went like let's say the parking garage is six stories, there'd be like six cars, you'd watch something, and then you'd go up to the next floor, and the next set of cars would come in. So the people performing would perform only one section and they would do it over and over until everyone had gone through. And so it was just a really creative way of uh putting on a performance at that period in time. And Christine Gherky came blitzing in a Ford Mustang. It was so it was wild. That was super wild to see.
SPEAKER_00:I wish there was the night it was raining and she's like in a Mustang that's on fire in the rain, singing the way Christine Gherky sings. That was just incredible.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think it was raining. No, I think it was good weather when I was there.
SPEAKER_01:So you must have been pretty tight by the end if you played it over and over like 30 times.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and there was multiple days too. And I was just so glad to be on the top level with the Gherky because she had a hot mic 24-7. And if you've ever been around her, she's really cool. So we had some great little commentary over the speakers. Oh wow. Like about the pizza she's gonna order, or you know, if her clothes were too tight or something. It's really funny.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Thanks again, Nick for coming to the F. I never thanked you enough because we didn't get to talk because you were in the car.
SPEAKER_02:I know, yeah. Yeah, it's just it we came down specifically to see that because Daniela was like, I heard about this thing and I just want to check it out. And it's like, what else do I have going on? I'll drive because we were in West Michigan, it's only like a three-hour drive. You know?
SPEAKER_00:Only a three hour drive. That's a good Michigan to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Britt, you really like animals.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's very prevalent to anyone that knows you. If you follow Brit on Instagram, you'll probably see on her stories it'll be like 95% animal content and like maybe something about some solo thing she's doing.
SPEAKER_02:Are you I know you're a cat person. Are you only a cat person? Or okay, I'll show you my dog here in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:Please. No, I grew up with dogs. I love dogs. I just don't quite have the time for dogs to let them out and everything. So, I mean, my cats are needy is as all get out, but at least they can poop on their own.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can leave them alone longer. So it's just two cats right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but they both love trombone. Like the world keeps sending me trombone positive cats, so I'm very grateful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have like one famous one, right? That got on the dodo or whatever.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's right. Yes. The late Fudge. She passed away last year. Sorry. Uh oh, thank you. Yeah, she taught at many music festivals, so she had quite a life. Yeah, and now I've got Clove and Poppy.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you'll get to meet my dog. I'm bringing him to Bloomington. So Oh, good.
SPEAKER_01:See, now Britt will hang out with you. It's like, all right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, now when you freak.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to look. Dodo Fudge the cat.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's gotta be one of your proudest moments, is being on that, I'd imagine, because that's such a cool little program.
SPEAKER_00:It is, yeah. And I was happy to bring awareness to like adopting animals. And you know, fudge was a tough love cat, so also they're worth adopting the ones that don't seem friendly at the start.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of cat videos on here, but it got like like a million views, I imagine. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_00:Jennifer Anishon shared it. Is that right? She shared it. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I mean that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:It has so many followers. I've been following that for years, and so I did I had no idea you you were on that. And uh, it took like longer than I care to admit for me to realize it was you because it's just like it just didn't seem like I would see someone I knew on something like that. And so I'm watching and I was like, God, that girl looks familiar. And I was just like, oh my god, like and then I put it together, like she did say her name is Brittany, or maybe you said Britt, but uh and it's like it's yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Then of course I saw you shared it, and I found the Spanish version, El Dodo.
SPEAKER_02:What does that mean? I don't speak Spanish.
SPEAKER_01:The dodo. Well, man, that's cool. But I mean, I could imagine you being like happy, could you just be like a little Dr. Doolittle living on a farm with like 20 animals?
SPEAKER_00:And it's kind of the it's kind of the dream, to be honest with you. I love making music, but I I would give it up to be a full-time animal caretaker.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you could do both, right? Like you just gotta I mean you live in an area where you can find some farmland and I guess you would just need some help taking care of everything.
SPEAKER_00:You're getting at you're getting into my early retirement plan there, special.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I just found out recently that manis allows you to bring your pets to work. Whoa. And so I found something recently, and so I'm gonna ask my students, do you mind if I bring my dog? I don't know how Kiki's gonna do during a trombone lesson. He chills. I mean, I teach lessons at the apartment. I just taught two this morning, and he just sits here. He likes a trombone.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, good boy.
SPEAKER_01:What uh in your dream farm, what would the animals be?
SPEAKER_00:I'd want a bunch of retired farm animals, like retired cow and llamas, horses, you name it. I want all the misfits. It'd be like awesome to have a sanctuary where they could stay with me forever, but if people wanted to come adopt them, they could. And then like you're touching on something I think about all the time. I also want like more property to have an artist retreat where people could like apply to do whatever medium they work on, compose, paint, whatever. And the only thing they have to do is help with the animals. And then a concert series on the property.
SPEAKER_01:That but you're describing, aren't you describing what uh Nick, who's the conductor who had that big farm property in the world? Oh Mozelle.
SPEAKER_00:I went there. Yeah. I stayed there.
SPEAKER_01:So you could you're thinking something like that, maybe?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's a little more music focused and less like animal sanctuary. That was just a functioning farm.
SPEAKER_01:And he had two really scary emu on the on his zebra slash zonky.
unknown:Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Oh well sign me a zonky. A zebra donkey. Well is this just something that's always been naturally like you just always been felt connected to animals?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, 100%. I would have been a vet if I wasn't so bad at math. There's a lot of math in that job. Pre-med, pre-vet med science, real bad at all that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, that's another field. When your pet is sick, boy oh boy, vets are expensive. But rightfully so. And that's when we realized we needed to find a smarter, better vet.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:But he was fine, luckily. Another way that Brit is a badass making us feel bad about ourselves. She and correct me if this hasn't been updated lately, but you've done 11 marathons.
SPEAKER_00:I'm slow, I'm slow.
SPEAKER_01:You did them though.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, what's the uh I imagine there's a lot of transference between that and music as far as just chasing goals and I imagine there's a lot of aerobic benefits, clearly. I mean, what lessons have you learned from that kind of training?
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, once you do a marathon, it's addicting because the biggest high you'll ever get in your life is crossing the finish line. I truly just burst into tears half because you have all these like endorphins and stuff going through your body, and half because you're in so much pain you want to die.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:I have I actually have one next week. But it really, and I know to people who don't exercise regularly, this will not resonate with you, but if you exercise regularly, you will agree that running is just 90% this. Like it's so much ignoring that you think you're in pain, ignoring you think you can't do it. Now, obviously, if you're really injured, I'm not saying that you know running doesn't hurt or injuries don't happen, but it's just convincing yourself for hours and not to stop, and that you've trained for this and it's worthwhile to see it through. And you know, marathons for me take four, five, and sometimes even six hours that a concert can feel like that, or an audition can feel like that, even if it's literally five minutes, and it's just the locking in mentally for all the that time that transfers for me the most.
SPEAKER_01:Do you listen to music while you're running? Are you more like a deal with your thoughts? What kind of stuff you listen to?
SPEAKER_00:The worst, most obnoxious pop club music. Like I just want to be amped up for three, four, five hours. My first marathon, I listened to the ring cycle, and weirdly it was my PR. So I don't know if there's a correlation there, but I was very bored.
SPEAKER_02:You should just listen to the Rimsky Kors Korsakov concerto on repeat.
SPEAKER_03:I knew this was coming.
SPEAKER_01:And your reward, your reward is you get to stop it once you finish, so it'll make you run faster.
SPEAKER_00:I will consider this for next week.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you'll run a like sub-three-hour marathon because you're just like, make it stop.
SPEAKER_00:Truly. Yeah. But it's also, I love it because if you have you ever like been to watch one in New York or anywhere?
SPEAKER_02:In Boston. It's huge there. Like the culture of it there, like the whole city stops for it.
SPEAKER_00:And that's actually why I started running because my first year in Boston was the bombing. Oh. And I had never been to a marathon. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like the energy is amazing. You've got young people, old people whose bodies you don't assume are runners' bodies, but everybody is a runner's body. You got military people, like you got people in addiction recovery. It's a sport for everyone. You just gotta put on two shoes and go, as opposed to all these other sports. It's all pro athletes. And so I was like totally infected by the spirit of marathons. And then, you know, 20 minutes into my first marathon experience, I heard over Cops radios what was going on. I was four miles from the finish line. Whoa. And we're just like, yeah, it was really messed up. And he just was like, you know, turned it off. And I walked the two blocks back to my apartment because my apartment was really close to the route down at Cleveland Circle. And one of the trombone players in my studio named Arthur, he was a very good runner, but it's very hard to get a bib for Boston. So he was doing a thing called banditing, which is where after all the bibbed runners go, they do an unofficial, like you wait a few minutes and then you can run it without a bib. So it's not official, but you run the marathon. And so him and his then girlfriend at the time, who's now his wife, they were both banditing. And the problem with that is they don't have a bib, so we don't know where they were. But if you watch the footage from the end of the marathon, in the far upper left corner, you can actually see Arthur and Natalie. Like the bomb goes off and you see them, and then they like they dip. And we didn't know where they were for like a really long time. They had to run another four miles to friends, and they were fine and we're so lucky. But I was just like the whole intensity of it. I'm like, let's start running.
SPEAKER_01:So this experience made you want to run marathons more by experiencing a bombing. Okay, just putting that together.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was the culture of the marathon before the bombing, and then what happened to Boston after the bombing. Oh, really? That inspired me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool. And gosh, I can only imagine the beautiful fall runs you you're having right now in Indiana. It must be some pretty awesome things. Cool. Let's do some rapid fire questions.
unknown:Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:How does that sound? Um you get bonus points for every answer you cry to. Okay. I'm getting close. No. We always start with what advice would you give to your 18-year-old self? Which for you, you're just like a well-seasoned undergraduate at that point.
SPEAKER_00:Just trust the process. Don't worry, it's gonna work out because of your work ethic.
SPEAKER_01:Good. Good. I love that. If your trombone could talk, what's the one complaint it would have about you?
SPEAKER_00:Clean me.
SPEAKER_01:You're not supposed to admit that out loud.
SPEAKER_00:I don't like to keep things for my students.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's always the worst when your repair person just gives you a look, like when you take it to a cleaning and there's like Ago, every time I go to Edwards, Christian, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Jesse, I'm so sorry. I know you guys take my Trump bone and you're like drop it in.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Josh Landris got in some heat here not too long ago because he posted a picture of a dirty horn and like was didn't say a name, but was like basically like shame on you for like this being so dirty. And like some people were like, Hell yeah, call him out, and other people were like, that's very unprofessional. It was like a very mixed reaction. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:He sees it all day, I feel for it. But I'll admit I'm not the best.
SPEAKER_01:As a professor, what is the one non-trombone piece of advice you find yourself giving to your students most often?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it in this, I think every year that goes by since I've been in school, it is you must be an excellent trombone player. You must be an excellent musician who plays the trombone. But every year that goes by, it's more and more important to be good at other things. Clear communication, appropriate interactions with people in person and on social media, being prepared, planning ahead, all of these things. Like you you can't just be the world's best trombone player and expect everything to come to you. Because at the end of the day, I think maybe you'd agree with this. The people who play the best, but we want to be around, get the calls, not just the best person.
SPEAKER_01:We may have just kind of covered this with Marathon, but beyond the trombone, what's one thing you've learned that's most impacted your musicianship?
SPEAKER_00:I I really do think it's running and finding a purpose outside of trombone. I think that when you are a professional musician, your life's a little bit of an interesting journey where you need to be very selfish and obsessed and practice and put in all this time, and then you get to a point where that pays off and you can no longer make the trombone your entire identity, or you're gonna be a very sad person. So you need to find your people and your hobbies and the places that make you feel not only comfortable but inspired to not burn out.
SPEAKER_01:Find your people or find your animals? Yeah, so both have you this might be a really stupid question. What's one lesson your cats have taught you about practice or performance?
SPEAKER_00:Practice or performance. Well, the first thing that comes to mind, it's not necessarily about practice or performance, but kind of life in general, is have good boundaries. So the queens and kings of boundaries. And so sometimes as musicians, we are like yes to everything. We feel like we have no autonomy to say no to some things, but you will be a little bit better if you have reasonable boundaries. I like that.
SPEAKER_01:For fun, I'm asking AI lately to come up with a rapid fire question. And so gosh. This is the this is the question AI came up with. You get to form an all-animal brass quintet for a charity event. What animal are you putting on first trumpet?
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, that's a good question. Probably a chihuahua. Wow, because they're just like yappy and yeah, they're gonna make the center of attention about them, no matter how small they are.
SPEAKER_02:That is so true. I was trying to think of a an actual trumpet player, a name. Like it, like it would be it would have been funny if instead of actually saying an animal, you just said a real person.
SPEAKER_00:That'd be small AI said animal, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you could argue that trumpet players are already animals.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Aren't we all?
SPEAKER_01:That's good. That's good. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention you just posted there's uh gonna be a new opening for Professor of Trombone at Indiana University. Is there anything you'd like to share about that or thing you're looking for?
SPEAKER_00:Looking for people to apply. Yeah, it's a tough and wonderful search. I mean, we're looking for the best of all the worlds that music making and teaching has to offer, like a great player, a great teacher, and a great colleague. And we've had a lot of turnover in the brass department, and I'm really excited about what the future is going to hold. So I hope the right person uh applies, and I'm looking forward to finding them. I always learn a lot through doing faculty searches. And once, especially any search, I'm sure orchestra committees are the same way. Like once you're behind the curtain, you're like, ah, I see why I got this, or you understand why you advanced it something because you hear how many people either have bad time or typos in their cover letters, that kind of thing. So yeah, I'm really excited about it.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:What do you think students should be doing more of that they're not?
SPEAKER_00:I think it intense listening because I am so grateful I didn't have smartphones when I was in school, and I had to go to the library and burn things, and I had to go to live concerts to hear things. And it wasn't even that long ago, but I find that so many of my students realize they have access to so much information that they don't actually use the information because they know it's there and they can go look it up. But uh, I barely speak German. I had to learn all the Mahler and Mahler 3 and all the other Mahers, and I just remember hanging out with friends, and our what we did for fun was watching old videos of Chicago play Mahler symphonies and stuff like that. And I just don't see my students geeking out in that way. And you know, they'll if I tell them go listen to a reference recording, they'll go do it. But it's like you have to have that hunger and dedication to your craft. You don't need to know everything, but you gotta know that Tubamiram comes from a requiem and what a requiem is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I it's so funny you say that. I just taught a lesson where I I wasn't, I don't want to say chastising, but saying, you know, when I was growing up, I didn't have this thing, and like you know, you can just with five seconds of typing, you can search and find hundreds of recordings of this piece, you know. There's no excuse, but it's a mixed bag. It's like the best thing that's ever happened to humanity and the worst thing that's happened to humanity because it's like the entire world's at your fingertips, so that means the entire world's at your fingertips, and that can be a distraction.
SPEAKER_00:Or not just a distraction, but I always have to at this point I think it needs to come back in my syllabus. If you're gonna listen to a recording, you need to know who you're listening to. Oh, yeah. Because I'm sure the second chair, Flirter All Stay Kid, is a great trombone player, but I'd rather you listen to Jorgit or somebody instead of them.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Listen to the fourth chair, yeah. I mean, you you know, you just said like, you know, back when I was younger, we had to go to the library and burn stuff. Like, you remember how exciting that was when we could burn things? Like, you're like, oh, you can go to the library and just check out everything and burn it, and you can have it. I there yeah, it's there's there there was an intrinsic value about stuff. I remember Finlison telling me like they'd even get excerpts for auditions. They were just told, like, hey, know this and this, and you just had to like kind of just know the music. Some people just played it how it sounded, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Harwood would said that it would just say standard orchestral repertoire. And when he auditioned for the Philharmonic, he knew Boulez was the music director, and he's like, he's probably gonna ask for some like wacky things. So he went and got a score for like Berg Three Pieces and copied out the bass Roman part, and lo and behold, there was on a site reading round, there was some Berg Three pieces, and so he was like prepared.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool. Oh man. Well, wow, what work what's coming up for you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've got the trombone quad concert here at IU Monday. I'm gonna go visit Martin McCain at the University of Memphis later this week. Next week I have an IU recital on campus, faculty recital.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Playing playing cool.
SPEAKER_00:At Martin School, I'm playing my arrangement of the Teleman C minor oboe concerto and a really cool piece called Ruri Muscari by Yutako Yuza. Highly recommended. I've been playing it a couple places this year. It's like a short five, six minute piece, but it it's so funny. No matter what I play in the program, everyone's like, oh, that Japanese piece, that was so cool. It's just the right amount of lyricism. Um, so check it out, and then SCP.
SPEAKER_02:SCP?
SPEAKER_00:Secure containment pretty. Protect by James M. David, which is really hip with the kids.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if I know that one.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you you know it, it's but you don't remember to know that.
unknown:Oh that one.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think it's one of his best pieces. It's really cool. We got the hard to destroy lizards. It's about space and stuff.
SPEAKER_01:I think she's just making up stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Google it.
SPEAKER_01:Please check out Britt's album, Dark Horse, that you can listen to everywhere it appears. Um Britt, you're our hero. We're so proud of you, and you're a badass, and continue to be a badass, please. And we look forward to seeing you in the future in real life at some point. Are you going to Latvia?
SPEAKER_00:If my students do what I hope they do. Oh, gotcha. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I hope so. But that would be are you guys going?
SPEAKER_01:It's we've earmarked it in the calendar. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It it sounds like a fun trip.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So hopefully we meet up there.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we kind of just want to like go and then do one thing and then just travel around Latvia and stuff. That'd be fun. Um, cool. Well, thanks for hanging out. I guess this is this the part where we talk about her afterwards for me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much both for having me. This is really good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for making time for us. I didn't like everything in the talk soon. Yeah, and I'll text you when I'm in Bloomington, okay?
SPEAKER_00:Sounds good. Yeah, I'll be here on Monday, Tuesday on Kenny.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, sounds good. Alright.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Do I leave now?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if that works.
SPEAKER_00:Get out! What do I click?
SPEAKER_01:Uh leave. Does it say leave session anywhere?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you know what? It's not gonna allow her to until we stop the recording, Sebastian. I think it's a fail save.
SPEAKER_01:This is the outro right now. So, Britt, how what did you think of your performance on the trombone retreat? Was it what you were expecting? Could have been worse. Could could have been hey, I'll take that.
SPEAKER_00:The good question.
SPEAKER_01:That's not bad. And you didn't cry, so that was pretty good.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna save that for later.
SPEAKER_01:Oh when you listen back.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Is there oh it's me, every performance. I always I forgot to ask, is there anything we didn't talk about that you would like to talk about, or is there anything that we didn't say that you'd like to say in closing?
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_00:I thought it was nice of you to plug my CD, so I think that's all I got right now, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Cool.
SPEAKER_00:But if any students When's this coming out? Do you have any idea? I was gonna plug applying for IU because applications close December 1st.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it'll come out before then.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Play IU.
SPEAKER_00:But that'd be awesome. And yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Is there pre-screening?
SPEAKER_00:And why I discovered the pre-screening, so please just go on and apply. We have three audition dates in the spring, and uh, we might be willing to accept late applications on the case.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, Nick, Nick, let's go get our doctorates with Brit. Or I can apply for the job and just continue the tradition of being a bass Ramonist who plays in the Met and teaches at IU.
SPEAKER_01:That works.
