Last May, the Luxembourg based brass quintet “The Ni Ensemble” began the process of procuring a commissioning grant from the Luxembourg Minister of Culture. Despite the fact that they frequently perform my “Ricochet” and “Casbah of Tetouan”, they wanted a new work from me, one which was specifically composed for their ensemble. Of course, the bureaucracy involved in this project was pretty daunting, and would promise to take a long time to complete. Nevertheless, the creation of this piece began slowly churning inside my head. I knew it was going to be a passacaglia, that is, a theme which is repeated over and over throughout the piece in a drone-like fashion. Months passed, and I reached a point at the end of August where the piece was truly ready to pour out onto the page. But I still had not yet heard from the Minister of Culture!

The passacaglia theme continued to drone in my head (I know it sounds melodramatic, but it was like that!), and I could wait no longer. So without knowing if I was indeed going to get paid for this commission, I began to compose. The long gestation period had served me well, perhaps a little too well. I had a thousand ideas! But like any great piece of music, there was only one way it should be. The incorporation into the piece of an old cowboy folksong, the text of which fit astoundingly well, and the arbitrary beginning and ending of the piece in the same key ( a sure fire way to determine if I was following the muse correctly), all convinced me that I had indeed chosen the right path for the work. A few weeks after completion, I received the letter stating that the commission had been granted.

The Ni Ensemble has since taken the new quintet on a short tour to Wales and presented the world premier. They also sat down in their accommodation space on that tour, and using our home video camera, recorded a read-through of “Cortejo”. And this is now available on YouTube (http://youtu.be/FCu6JIbs6Ks).

Here is the description of my new piece for brass quintet. I think it is pretty important for the understanding of the work.

The word “cortejo” means cortege or funeral procession in Spanish. A passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used by contemporary composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often, but not always, based on a bass-ostinato. It was however in contemplating the meaning of the word “passacaglia”- pasar (to walk) and calle (street), that the composer drew upon the idea to incorporate the old U.S. Western folksong “Cowboys Lament” or “As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.”

The story of this folksong is about a young and handsome cowboy in the old Texas-Mexican border town of Laredo, who after a night of wild living and drunkenness, gets shot in the chest, and wrapped in white linen, is paraded through the streets. The locals would have called it a “Cortejo” (pronounced korteho.)

The piece begins with a characteristically tragic passacaglia theme, which is heard in some shape or form almost throughout the entire work. The “Cowboys Lament” is subtly introduced in the stopped horn. The secondary theme arrives after the fourth repetition of the passacaglia theme, and is declamatory in nature. This sets the stage for the adventurous third section of the piece marked “allegro vivo.” At this point in the work, the listener may draw on his or her imagination to create the scenario, which leads to the cowboy’s death. The various themes and motives are woven together to create a sort of narrative, the climax of which is the dramatic and bitter cortege- cortejo.

“As I walked out on the streets of Laredo. As I walked out in Laredo one day, I spied a young cowboy, so young and so handsome, wrapped up in white linen and cold as the grave.” (first verse of “The Cowboy’s Lament”.)

“Cortejo” was commissioned by the Ni Ensemble, with a grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and was composed in September 2011.

There has been a lot of activity on the composition front these past few months. I have received quite a few new commissions. And I have had some success with my orchestral tone poem, “Karankawa”. Let’s start with the latter.

“Karankawa” is an extremely atmospheric tone poem based on a true story involving the Karankawa Indians of South Texas and the first French settlers under LaSalle in 1685 (interestingly enough, the year J.S. Bach was born.) The piece lasts about 9 minutes, and is scored for a traditional size orchestra, say, the same instrumentation as “Till Eulenspiegel”. Although the original version is for symphony orchestra, we have arranged a version for large wind ensemble. And I think it will work well for that instrumentation. The “World Premier” I suppose was the recording of the work by the Sinfonia Iuventus in Warsaw. This is a dynamite young orchestra which played the piece with spectacular enthusiasm and gusto. The CD on which the piece can be heard is called “Karankawa” and is available on the Albany Records label (www.albanyrecords.com, Troy 1141.)

The Luxembourg Philharmonic played “Karankawa” three times back last March. And it was really a huge success. So much so, that some scouts from the neighboring orchestra in Germany, The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken, took back the idea to their administration, and now the piece will be played again, this time in Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken, on May 31st through June 3rd, 2012. But there still has not yet been a premier of the wind ensemble version. So anyone interested?

Other news, last May, I completed a commission for a new major work for horn choir. This was a commission by Mr. Kenichi Shimizu and the “TAMA Katatsumuri no Kai”. The work is called “The Season”, and is comprised of four movements, you guessed it, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. The World Premier is set for May, 2014.

Mr. Kenichi, along with the horn ensemble “aHorn” had also commissioned me for another work, this time for horn octet. This piece is called “Hymnus”, and is intended to be performed at the Aichi Festival this Fall. “Hymnus” is about 7 minutes long.

The Ni Ensemble, a brass quintet based in Luxembourg, has commissioned me to write a piece for their award winning ensemble. They will be taking the piece on tour to the United Kingdom this coming November. I just completed the work last night (September 24). It is called “Cortejo” and it’s a passacaglia. “Cortejo” is a Spanish word for cortege, or funeral procession. The idea was inspired by the old American Western folksong, “The Cowboys Lament” (“When I walked out on the streets on laredo…”.) The haunting and relentless passacaglia theme runs throughout the whole piece, develops into an energetic and adventurous allegro section and eventually climaxes with a direct quote from the famous Western folksong.

There are three more commissions awaiting my attention. The first is a piece for percussion duo, which is being commissioned and performed by Chris Hastings and Michel Mootz, who call themselves the “Transadlibit Percussion Duo”. The work will probably be about Sago Lane in Singapore, otherwise known as “Street of the Dead” in China Town. I know, all of these macabre themes, right?

The next commission is for clarinet, horn and piano. It will be a joint commission by Renée Menkhaus and her group, and Mr. Greg Danner at Tennessee Tech. I will supply more information about this work and these two artists who have commissioned in a later blog.

But certainly the big news is my Concerto for Horn, which has been commissioned by Karl Pituch and the Detroit Symphony. It is scheduled to be performed in the Spring of 2013 with Maestro Leonard Slatkin on the podium. Karl is the principal horn in this distinguished orchestra, and he will of course, be giving the World Premier.

I have a good number of very recent works which I have not had the time to promote. I am looking for a publisher for these, and I am looking into recording them on CD, so that people around the world will have access to them. They are without a doubt, some of my finest work:

The Scorpion in the Sand- horn, cello and piano
The Ballad of Annabel Lee- trumpet, voice and piano
The Navajo Mandala- combined woodwind and brass quintets
Waltzing Matilda- horn quartet, with 2 off stage horns
Improvisation- a relatively older work for brass quintet
And, of course, the new pieces mentioned in this blog.

So I had better get out the old pencil, pencil sharpener, straight edge, manuscript paper and eraser and get to work!

Das American Hornquartett wird am 12.9., beim Eröffungskonzert der Norddeutschen Horntage in Wolfenbüttel auftreten. Auf dem Programm sind Werke von Telemann, Bizet, Bernstein, Turner, Manzini und Shaw. Das Konzert findet in der Landesmusikakademie Niedersachsen, Wolfenbüttel, um 19:30 statt. Um weitere Informationen zu erfahren, klicken Sie auf: norddeutsche-horntage.de.

Eine Tournee durch Frankreich ist geplannt, und zwar vom 31. 3 bis 8.4.2012. Die komplizierte Organisation einer grossen Tournee durch den Vereinigten Staaten ist ebenfalls unterwegs. Die wird von der letzten Woche März bis zur 2. Woche April, 2013 stattfinden. Weitere Auftritte sind noch in Diskussion: Lieksa Brass Festival, Jeju Brass Festival, und ein Auftritt mit dem Luxemburger Kammerorchester.

The AHQ will be performing the opening concert at the North German Horn Symposium in Wolfenbüttel, which just happens to be the city where they produce Jägermeister. The concert will begin at 7:30 PM and will take place at the Music Academy of Lower Saxony on September 12th. The program is as follows:

Concerto for 4 Horns Telemann
Carmen Suite Bizet (Turner)
West Side Story Suite Bernstein (Perkins)

Waltzing Matilda Turner
Quartet Nr. 1 Turner
Moon River Mancini (Turner)
Fripperies 19 and 6 Shaw

For more information, tickets, etc., see this website: norddeutsche-horntage.de.

The AHQ will be on tour in France between March 31st and April 8th, 2012. There is also a large USA tour in the planning for the last week of March till the 2nd week of April, 2013. The world famous horn quartet is also presently in negotiations with the music festivals in Lieksa, Finland and Jeju, Korea, as well as a performance with the Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra in 2012.

I am happy to report that I have completed my latest commissioned work for large horn ensemble. The four movement work is entitled “The Seasons” and the movements are, obviously Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Mr. Kenichi Shimizu, who conducts the “TAMA Katatsumuri no kai” horn ensemble in Japan contacted me a couple of years ago about the possibility of commissioning a large, multi-movement work, which would be for three separate horn ensembles of different levels: professional level, advanced student or amateur level, and beginner or “easy” level, and percussion. The deadline was set for May 8, 2011, and my copyist, Mr. Geoffrey Winter and I did indeed deliver on time. This is what I have written about the work, which will appear in the score liner notes:

“It has been the desire of the composer for quite some time to write a work based on the four seasons. In Mr. Turner’s home in Luxembourg in Central Europe, three of the seasons are extremely pronounced. Spring, in all it’s verdant glory, is an uncommon relief after the bitter and snowy Winters. And in the Autumn, the trees burst with radiant colors of red, yellow, green and brown before the great multitude of leaves literally rain down from the trees. Mr. Turner traditionally spends his Summers abroad, either in New York City, Italy or Spain. During his holiday in these places, he can enjoy the heat of the Summer, the relaxing, lazy days, as well as the exotic feel that comes with traveling there.

The first movement is “Autumn”. From the first measure, the beautiful colors of Autumn splash onto the page. The main theme is melancholy and wistful. The second section of this movement, represents the excitement and positive mood of either returning back to school, or back to the job after a long vacation. This is followed by the dance of the leaves in the wind. As the late Autumn arrives, it is time for the millions of leaves to fall, drifting to the ground, until the trees stand bare and melancholy.

“Winter” opens with the sound of sleigh bells. The main theme of this movement is in the style of “Troika”. It is cold, rainy and grey. When the snow begins to fall, it falls in thick, wet blankets and piles high up on the ground. At last, when the snowfall has ceased, the scene outside is at once dreary and beautiful. Everything is white, except maybe the faint glow of a street lamp.

“Spring” opens with the sound of rain drops, at first light and then, growing louder, it turns into a real Spring rainfall with distant thunder. The melody is, however, youthful and full of hope. Following this, the listener witnesses the spectacular blooming of thousands of flowers, grasses and leaves. This section climaxes in a burst of color and life.

For the composer, “Summer” has always remained his favorite season. Not only the Summer heat, but the reunion with family members as well the exotic travel have always held a very special place in his heart. Trying to represent all of these elements and emotions in a horn ensemble piece proved to be difficult. Mr. Turner was composing this work in the heart of Winter, and the joy of Summer was really nothing more than a memory. In contemplating this, and given the fact that the work was commissioned by the honorable Japanese Horn Ensemble TAMA Katatsumuri no Kai, it seemed logical to use the famous Japanese folksong “Natsu no Omoide” or “Summer Memories” as the principal theme.

This work was conceived and created to be played by a large horn ensemble comprised of three choirs of different levels of difficulty:

Choir 1- Advanced level, to be played by 4 to 8 players.
Choir 2- Intermediate level, to be played by 4 to 8 players.
Choir 3- Easy level, to be played by 4 to 16 players. ”

A publisher for this major work for horn choir has not yet been determined. The “TAMA Katatsumuri no kai” retains rights to the work until May 2013. For those of you who may be interested in a similar large scale work for horn ensemble, please check out my work for three antiphonal horn quartets and percussion called “Bronze Triptych”. This work was commissioned by the horn section of the Dallas Symphony and is featured on the “Texas Horns” CD (Crystal Records CD774), a CD recorded by the combined sections of the Dallas and Houston horn sections. The work is published by Patti’s Prints, a link for which can be found on the AHQ website, www.hornquartet.com.

On May 27th at 8 pm, Kristina Mascher and I- The Virtuoso Horn Duo- along with our pianist, Lauretta Bloomer will be participating in the opening recital of the 2011 BrassExplosion Festival in Singapore. Our portion of the program will include my “Twas a Dark and Stormy Night”, Introduction and Rondeau by Kalliwoda, and other pieces by Walter Perkins and Antonio Vivaldi. The following 2 days will see each of us presenting masterclasses at the Nanyang Academy of Performing Arts, the principal venue of this fantastic festival. Please click on this link: www.brasssociety.com to see all of the other events at Brassexplosion 2011.

This past week has been a very interesting experience. My wife, Kristina and I had organized a small tour of four concerts in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany, performing a wonderfully varied and virtuoso program with our pianist, Lauretta Bloomer. The suggestion to do this tour actually came from Lauretta and her husband, Bruce Rienstra, who works for the church in The Hague, one of the places we played. We were light heartedly calling it the “Sweet L’il Church Tour” as all four concerts were held at Anglican (or Episcopal) churches.

There was no sponsor for this undertaking. There were no fees involved. Bruce simply provided us with the space through his connections with each church, and we all agreed to do as much promotion and advertising for the tour as we could, given our collective busy schedules. The plan for payment- a suggested donation of 15 Euros (21 US Dollars) at the door plus the sales of VHD CDs as well as Lauretta’s solo CDs.

The idea was never a bad one. Throughout the many years I have toured with Kristina and my brother, Kyle, through the United States, Singapore and Australia, as well as my very extensive touring with the AHQ, we have, from time to time, scheduled just such a concert because either we needed to fill in the blanks (free days) on an otherwise full tour, or because we were playing in a home town of one of the players and there was therefore a lot of local interest. How have these concerts fared? Well, in the past, you could count on a rather decent turn out. Back in the 90’s, it didn’t seem to be too difficult to attract an audience of say, 60 or 70 to one of these self-organized events. Sometimes we even had a couple of hundred. As the new century chimed in, I did indeed notice a slight decrease in concert attendance. But it certainly didn’t seem prophetic or drastic by any means. Just a couple of concerts over a couple years that were poorly attended. This last year however has brought a new realization to my previous blindness to the state of the arts, as I have performed quite a few times for almost empty houses.

This past “Cute L’il Church Tour” proved, unfortunately to be a severely negative experience in terms of audience attendance. The first concert in Waterloo was very poorly attended indeed. Luckily some good friends and colleagues of ours made the trip (just south of Brussels) to be there and support us. The concert in The Hague saw a somewhat better turn out, although still quite small. We decided to cancel the concert in Eindhoven since we all had the least friends and connections in that city, and the final recital in Wiesbaden was just passing in acceptable numbers. There were horn players at all of these concerts. And the enthusiasm from the audiences was extremely high! I think we played the poorest in Waterloo only because of the initial shock of seeing such an empty church sanctuary instead of a wildly applauding crowd. It was demoralizing and embarrassing, as anyone who has been in that situation knows. I personally could not really focus for the first half of the concert.

You see, over the past few months, I had been coming to grips with this new reality of the classical music business, a term I despise because I will never consider it a business and thoroughly believe that doing so spells out the inevitable demise of this magnificent art. My orchestra, the OPL, has been delivered an entirely new mandate, suggesting that we follow in the footsteps of American orchestras. Fund raising, privatization, audience targeting, seeking out large corporate sponsors and strategic programming and promotion are the order of the day now for us. This way of funding the arts is exactly why I left America back in 1982. Europe was the golden land of thriving orchestras and was an unbelievably sumptuous performing arts scene. There was money everywhere for the arts, mostly government money. And this way of providing for their culture created this ideal dream environment. Well, all that has changed now since September 11, 2001 and the subsequent world financial crisis (I’m not linking the two necessarily, it’s just coincidental). The opulent coffers of the European fine arts have been drained and everyone, it seems, is going the way of the U.S. fine arts set-up. Interestingly enough, they seem to have it developed to a pretty sophisticated level over there, whereas here in “the old country” we are total beginners in this way of doing things. This ironically prompts the desire to return to the States and continue working there, where they seem to have it together, more or less.

And all of this is hitting me as I step out in front of the tiny but beautifully enthusiastic audience in Waterloo and attempt to play the Haydn double concerto in Eb. What has gone wrong? We knew that these events were going to be a little under par in attendance, but never this! I had a similarly catastrophic situation in Luxembourg back in December where I organized a concert under these same conditions at the International School of Luxembourg for trumpet player Brian Chin. And I swore then and there never to do that again.

But Kristina, Lauretta and I love to play these recitals! And if I do say so myself, and please forgive my boasting, we play the living hell out of our repertoire, which is very entertaining and enjoyable (twice on this tour we received the comment, “that was much more fun than I thought it was going to be”, or something to that effect). And this one of the important ways we all make a living. So where is the audience? Where is the demand for this sort of fine art entertainment? For culture? Have the fine arts been totally drowned out by the obnoxiously loud and way overly financed (and shockingly low standard, by the way) monster machine, which is the pop culture?

Well, I have decided that the answer to that question is not “yes.” That is, the audience is indeed there. And they are loyally attending both symphony and chamber music concerts. This year in the Philharmonie, the OPL played several times to sold out (or nearly sold out) crowds. And the Philharmonie in Luxembourg is a huge facility. And when the AHQ has performed on a regular community chamber concert series, there was standing room only audiences. But the key word here is “regular community concert series”. The concert goers of the new century seem to desire to adhere themselves to a properly planned out and structured series of say, 7 or 8 chamber concerts which are held at a fine concert hall, offer a nice variety of ensembles and fit their busy, structured schedules. And sponsors, unfortunately the new way of funding the arts, quite logically opt to sponsor and advertise a concert series, where they can get advertising and cultural association in the community, not by supporting a one-time event, but being plastered on the programs and posters of 7 or 8 concerts over the year. It means more exposure and is simply good business (there’s that word again…) The result of this new way of thinking is what I have experienced over these past few years, namely if someone decides to organize a concert or recital as a “one offer”, it goes under the normal concert goers radar and sponsors are very reluctant to get involved.

Another new and frustrating phenomenon is the newly developed importance of having an agent or manager. With the vast ocean of touring musicians all scrambling for performance opportunities (so sad), the artistic committees for these regular chamber concert series are simply overwhelmed with choice. So the simple solution- turn the entire thing over to an agent. Or consult with artist managements, which have produced good results for you in the past. But artist managements and agents are businesses (did I say I strongly dislike that word?) They are principally interested in making money. Or of they do indeed have higher, loftier artistic ideals, they certainly don’t want to lose money. So they have one, maybe two brass players or brass chamber groups on their roster. And they are just as easily satisfied with selling their string quartet or piano trio as they would be selling a horn quartet or duo. In fact, I have been told by a very large music agency in Brussels, that “your ensemble is spectacular! If anyone ever needs a horn quartet, we’ll call you.” But nobody ever truly NEEDS a horn quartet.

So where does this all leave me? Well, the American Horn Quartet now has management. And Kristina and I could also pursue an impresario who would go to bat for us. The sheer time, frustration and patience involved in procuring a decent manager however, is a bit too daunting for me, especially at my age. I mean, aren’t my activities as a member of the OPL, the AHQ, the VHD, and as a composer and soloist enough? Just to give the reader an idea of the promotion I did for the “Cute L’il Church Tour”, we designed a beautiful poster for the tour, sent out hard copies to over 40 music schools, local community bands and horn teachers, as well as a mass e-mailing (including the beautiful poster) to more music organizations and conservatories and teachers, and even contacted over 12 retirement homes, offering half-prize entrance to the recitals. Fliers were printed up, to be distributed to the church congregations as well. Embracing the way of the future, we set up an event page on face book and blogged about the tour as well. And this sort of promotion cost me a lot of time! Time I really should be using to compose and practice, not to mention relax a little bit from time to time.

I decided to write this blog, not to the purpose of whining about and lamenting the state of the arts, but more to put into writing the thoughts that have been going through my mind this past year, and especially as I walked out onto the concert platform to perform incredibly difficult and beautiful music, only to be greeted by a handful of friends clapping as loud as they can, and looking really embarrassed.

Well, after a relatively calm autumn and Christmas season, musically speaking, things have certainly picked up recently. And it looks as if I will be pretty booked up until my summer vacation.

The AHQ completed a very successful tour of the USA, performing five concerts and giving three masterclasses in just under eight days. Immediately following my return home to Luxembourg, I was obligated to take my place on third horn in the OPL for rehearsals and concerts featuring Brahms 2nd and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra.

Starting this coming Tuesday, I will be fully engaged in the production and performance of my tone poem for symphony orchestra entitled “Karankawa”. The OPL will be playing it three times next week and I have been asked to participate in an interview on stage, in Luxembourgisch. On the day of the last concert (Saturday, March 26th), our pianist Lauretta Bloomer will be joining us in Luxembourg for rehearsals for a VHD tour, which begins the very next day. The program is a good one, featuring works by Haydn, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chopin and my old buddy, Walter Perkins. These concerts will be in Waterloo (Belgium), Den Haag and Eindhoven (both in Holland) and in Wiesbaden, Germany. Please see the calendar on this site for details.

Right on the heels of the VHD tour, it’s The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. Kristina will be joining the mighty horn section of the OPL for this production. April 11- 21 will see Kristina and me in South Africa- on vacation!

Then it’s right back into the fire with a “Carmen” production with the OPL, and then off to Singapore with Kristina and Lauretta for concerts and other events at the 2011 Brass Explosion Festival in that wonderful and vibrant city. After about a week of recovering from jet lag back home, I will be flying off once again. This time I will be performing a recital and teaching and coaching at the Summer Music Academy 2011 on the campus of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. If you are interested in this event, please contact Carolyn Blice at CBlice@aol.com. On Friday, June 17th at 3:30 PM, I will be performing a 1-hour recital on which I plan to play my own Sonata for Horn and Piano as well as the Larry Lowe Sonata Nr. 1.

I thought to write this blog because it occurred to me how funny my practicing schedule is. It seems that instead of practicing each program as it arrives, I am always working on the repertoire for two or three projects down the line. Today, for example, I was working pretty hard on the program for the Music Academy at Rollins College. But even stranger, why do I hear Kristina down in the basement, practicing licks from Bruckner 7? I guess she’s doing that somewhere along the way.

The Virtuoso Horn Duo will be on tour in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany from March 27th till April 2nd. Please open this file to see all the details.

vhd2011poster(2)

From March 27th till April 2nd, Kristina Mascher and I will be on a concert tour with pianist Lauretta Bloomer. It is certainly not the first time we have collaborated with this fabulous pianist on such a tour. We have performed together on two consecutive tours to the USA, and have presented concerts together in Rome, Singapore and Australia. This time Ms. Bloomer and the Virtuoso Horn Duo will be presenting four concerts in seven days in various locations in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. In fact, the group is referring to this tour as the Anglican Church Tour since all of the performance venues will be at the local Anglican churches. Kristina Mascher and I are ourselves members of the Anglican Church of Luxembourg. Our program is superb, comprised of works by Haydn, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Kalliwoda along with a clever suite of American Folksongs. There will be a suggested donation of 15 Euros at the door. Don’t miss this wonderful music event!
For details, check the website at www.kerryturner.com (click on “blogs”) or call Bruce Rienstra at +31 20 428 8119. A full itinerary of this tour will follow soon.