“If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.”
A trumpet player in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra finds himself playing solo from his childhood home.
Name: Gabe Slesinger
Hometown: Bethesda, Maryland
Current Residence: Charlotte, North Carolina
Living Situation: Living in childhood home with parents for quarantine
Age: 26
Occupation: Orchestral Musician, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra
Photo caption: This is my new “practice space” in my sister’s former bedroom.
You’ve been doing a little bit of voluntary recording and performing with fellow musicians, through #CSOatHome. How does this work?
We haven’t performed live since March, so the Charlotte Symphony has instituted #CSOatHome to encourage the musicians to perform anything they want at home, and then upload it so that patrons and students can access it.
The trumpet section and I wanted to do something fun, and there’s a lot of trumpet trios like that that we wouldn’t normally get to perform in a more serious orchestra concert, so it was fun to put something like that together.
Alex Wilborn, the principal trumpeter, first just recorded his part and sent us the audio from that. Then the second trumpeter put in headphones and just tried to play along. Then I got the audio from the first two trumpeters and lined my part up with that, and then we spliced it all together.
It’s a lot of trial and error. It’s really hard to do just with audio because when we play in person together there are a lot of visual and physical cues that you don’t even really realize.
Is there anything about playing in an orchestra that you took for granted in pre-pandemic life?
There are a couple things.
One of the things I like the most about playing in an orchestra is just the social aspect; it doesn’t really feel like a job, you’re just hanging out with your friends and playing music. Especially being a brass player, you’re just sitting at the back of the orchestra kind of chatting. I really miss that banter and cracking jokes because it’s one of my favorite things about my work.
The other thing is that I’ve been practicing and playing a lot to try to keep my chops up. When I’m going to the orchestra every day I practice less because I need to be fresh for rehearsals and concerts. I don’t want to play exhausted. Now that I’m having to practice a ton to stay in shape, I’m really appreciating how the job in the symphony keeps me in shape automatically. I would usually only play a hours each day with rehearsals, but now I’m sitting alone in a room for like four hours practicing.
I noticed a comment on a YouTube recording of your performance from the 2012 National Trumpet Competition, which you won, that said:
“I am just absolutely in love with how you played through this piece, the passion in which you played this was clearly shown. The love and music captivated my soul with every note you played...I wish you the best in everything you do musically.”
This gushing comment made me think that, in some ways, playing for an online audience could elicit more specific feedback than you would get if you were playing on stage. Can you talk about that?
Orchestra is maybe the most analog musical form there is. There’s nothing illegitimate about digital music; plenty of genres successfully use aspects of digital presentation, editing, producing, that kind of thing. I have one friend that is recording himself playing solo trumpet with a really nice microphone, and then he has a friend that’s a multimedia digital artist make a really cool video to go along with it. On the one hand all of these orchestras are putting out videos of them playing a Beethoven symphony and they’re all in their own boxes playing at home -- every orchestra has done it -- and that can be cool and exciting. But I think there’s this opportunity for new art to come out of this time.
There are certain things also that are lost when you try to put a concert in a video. You can hear some things, it’s like a representation of the art, but when you’re there in person hearing it the sound is coming directly from my lips into your ear. You really hear it differently, you feel the color in the sound and the waves hitting you, and that is a really different effect that can’t be recreated digitally.
The Berlin Philharmonic has for a really long time had this very successful virtual concert experience called the Digital Concert Hall. They invested a lot into really nice cameras and microphones, and you can subscribe and watch these incredible concert videos, it’s almost better than being there. On the one hand I really like that because I can watch the Berlin Phil and the Berlin Philharmonic is amazing. But I’ve also heard secondhand that some people in that orchestra really don’t like that they have to do this because they feel like it’s changed the sound of the Berlin Philharmonic; perhaps people take fewer risks during performances, they just stay in the box so they don’t mess it up.
I think that performing in front of people is like giving someone something in person, and that’s lost. It makes me sad!
What’s inspiring you right now?
I’ve been finding that I’m pretty sad about the state of the world and the state of music right now, so I’ve been listening to a lot of really feel-good trumpeters, especially old jazz, to lift my spirits. Doc Severinsen, who was the lead trumpeter for Johnny Carson, is my favorite. Also Al Hirt, an old trumpeter from New Orleans. Super fun, old pop trumpet recordings where there’s no care for orchestral precision, and it’s refreshing to play along with some of that stuff.
How do you see the industry adapting to COVID in the short-term, and do you think it will carry over in the next few years?
In the short-term a lot of orchestras are trying to figure out how to socially distance the musicians and audience, and there is a lot of research going on about aerosols created with wind instruments and how they travel. A lot of European orchestras are performing again, but they usually have much bigger stages than a lot of American orchestras. Lots of orchestras are doing outdoor performances that are recorded and mixed, like CSO al Fresco that the Charlotte Symphony is doing. Our whole Fall and Winter season has also been reprogrammed to have smaller pieces, with about 30-40 musicians on stage, whereas normally there would be about 70. Still, I’m not totally sure that’s going to happen.
How do you feel about the financial viability of orchestras like the CSO?
It’s really scary.
The thing about orchestras is that most of our money comes from donations, and at this particular historical moment a lot of people would rather donate to places like food banks than to orchestras, but if people stop donating then we’re in trouble. Still, I think that most cities want to have a legit professional orchestra in their city; it’s a point of pride for the city. There’s also a big difference between an orchestra that’s struggling and has been hanging by a thread for a really long time and an orchestra that suddenly folds. I think it’s possible that the only orchestras that will survive will be like the LA Phil, the NY Phil, and the Boston Symphony; they are huge organizations with massive endowments, whereas the Charlotte Symphony is pretty small.
Also, if you look historically, right now there are the most orchestras ever in the United States and they’re also the highest paying that they’ve ever been. So maybe this is just a glut, like a bubble that’s about to burst. Maybe this is a moment where all of this ends.
Photo caption: On a friend’s boat on the Chesapeake Bay.
What do you want to take to the other side of this?
Personally, I think that I want to take a greater appreciation for the luxury of interacting with and being near someone. Right now when I go out I just put my head down and try not to get close to people, and that’s honestly kind of terrible.
Professionally, I think I’m really going to appreciate the privilege of playing for an audience. It’s easy for orchestral life to become routine; we give so many concerts, and it just becomes work. But I think I’ll be so appreciative of what I do, if, and when, it returns.
PS: You can’t interview a musician and not ask them for their summer playlist! Gabe shared what he can’t get enough of these days —
One of Al Hirt’s most famous recordings is a song called Java, written by a legendary New Orleans musician named Allen Toussaint. It sounds so corny these days but it was a chart topper at the time and if you listen to four seconds of it, it’ll be stuck in your head all day.
Here is an hour of it, which is sort of funny:
One if Doc Severinsen’s most famous recordings is Rhapsody for Then. It’s amazing trumpet playing throughout...with one of the most famous trumpet high notes ever recorded (can’t miss it).
Some incredible footage of Louis Armstrong at the Newport Jazz Festival here...makes me nostalgic for summer music festivals: