LivMusic

A Letter to Bud Herseth

Craig Morris — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:46:14 +0000

Dear Bud, The news of your passing today came as a shock to me, and I have spent a good deal of time reflecting on the time that I was fortunate enough to spend with you both on and off stage. That time will always rate as some of the most memorable and valuable experiences [...]

St. Louis and Beyond

Craig Morris — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:43:30 +0000

My grand orchestral experiment of 2011-12 has now officially come to an end, and it has left me with some great performance experiences and some hard-earned clarity in my career. Since winning the audition for principal trumpet in the St. Louis Symphony last September, life has been interesting, slightly heady, and overwhelmingly hectic! In the [...]

Performance Reflections (from gate D48)

Craig Morris — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:59:22 +0000

Sitting here at my gate — waiting for my flight to board — I have been afforded the opportunity (thanks to an American Airlines flight delay) to reflect a bit on some recent and upcoming performances. I am excited to be headed to St. Louis to play principal trumpet with the St. Louis Symphony this [...]

Recharging the Batteries – Cabrillo Festival 2011

Craig Morris — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:06:24 +0000

It is that time of year again. Summer is screaming to a close and I find myself back at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for more challenging and inspiring music and music making. For me, this festival is always a welcome end to my summer because it provides a much needed recharge of the [...]

Charlier 4

Craig Morris — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:04:25 +0000

The fourth Charlier etude has become the seemingly forlorn sibling of the three venerable “Du Style” etudes, often overlooked in favor the popular #6 and the dominant and ubiquitous #2. And that is an unfortunate state of affairs, because this etude is an absolute delight to play and hear. It has taken me a while [...]

Con Sordina

Craig Morris — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:36:32 +0000

Sidestepping my line of straight mutes during a recent performance of Puccini’s Turandot – and nearly sending a couple flying into the under-stage depths — I started wondering how many people would be surprised to find out that I use three different straight mutes for a performance of an 84 year old Puccini opera? After [...]

Mobile Posting and Web Updates

Craig Morris — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:59:09 +0000

Obviously, my writing on here has been sparse of late. I have, however, been busy working on many other aspects of my “web presence”, so I thought I would take a minute — while waiting out an airline delay to — to simultaneously catch my LivMusic readers up to speed and test out the latest [...]

The Glorious Life…

Craig Morris — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:24:28 +0000

I know the life of a performing artist appears glamorous at times — doing something you are passionate about in front of an adoring audience, traveling the world, being immersed in a creative art form, etc. — but appearances, as always, can be deceiving. I was reflecting on this very fact last night while trudging [...]

Charlier Project

Craig Morris — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:33:11 +0000

Théo Charlier: 36 Etudes Transcendantes. I remember the first time I saw those words scrawled on a piece of paper by my college trumpet professor, Ray Crisara. I had no real idea at the time what kind of journey I was undertaking or how many hours of my time would be poured into the music [...]

Favorite CabFest Photos

Craig Morris — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:05:56 +0000

Continuing with my series of lists covering the 2010 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary music, I have compiled this list of favorite photos that I took while at the festival. There are certainly other photos (taken by others) that deserve to be in this list, but I don’t have the original files for those. If some [...]

Looking Back at CabFest 2010

Craig Morris — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:48:17 +0000

If you happen to have been following me on twitter lately, then you already know that I have been immersed in the world of new music via the portal that is the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. CabFest 2010 was an extraordinary affair: 12 visiting composers including John Adams, Philip Glass, Kevin Puts, Jennifer Higdon, [...]

Headphones

Craig Morris — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:15:39 +0000

I am sitting here listening to the music of my friend, Michael Ward-Bergeman on his MySpace page. It is fantastic music, but cranking it on the living room speakers would have less than ideal consequences considering it is almost midnight as I write this (I have a whole house full of people that need to [...]

A Morning with Maxwell Davies

Craig Morris — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:22:31 +0000

This morning I had coffee with Peter Maxwell Davies. Well, not the real Maxwell Davies, but with his music. Specifically, I had coffee with a brash 19 year old version of him who had the gall (thankfully) to write a compact hard driving Sonata that pushed the bounds of what is possible on the instrument, [...]

The bigger the cowhorn…

Craig Morris — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:02:21 +0000

I was doing some research on H.K. Gruber’s Aerial tonight. Specifically, I was looking into the cowhorn required in the piece — how one might acquire said cow horn and what might be involved in actually playing such a thing — when I came across this Wiki page. There isn’t much information here, but I [...]

More Oldies…

Craig Morris — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:33:31 +0000

As you can see, I have just re-posted the article Dueling with Pinchas: Building Strength for the Brandenburg and Beyond. A few people have written me about this article, so here it is, back by popular demand. Let me know if there are any other articles any of you are looking for. Hopefully I will [...]

Dueling with Pinchas: Building Strength for the Brandenburg and Beyond

Craig Morris — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:29:16 +0000

My first year as Principal Trumpet in the Chicago Symphony had enough big repertoire in it to tantalize, terrorize, and titillate anyone with aspirations of sitting in that chair. It just so happens that I was anyone. It never really felt like sitting, however; more like roasting, but that is a story for another time… [...]

Eventful Day

Craig Morris — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:22:17 +0000

As I sit here waiting for the radio feature to play on KALW, (in case you haven’t heard, there will be an hour long interview/special on me and my music on KALW San Francisco public radio tonight at 8pm PDT. To hear it, visit this page and select “Listen Live”) I am struck by what [...]

Reviving the Oldies

Craig Morris — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:36:14 +0000

One of the things involved in the site redesign that I did in late July is moving all of the old articles over into the new site. Most of them are already here, but a few haven’t made the move. I received a request for the Stamping It Out series, so those are posted below. [...]

Stamping It Out (Part III)

Craig Morris — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:09:13 +0000

If you began the Stamp routine when I first posted Stamping It Out (part I), you may be wondering why you have wasted your time on all this silliness while you could have actually been getting something accomplished in your practice routine. Don’t worry, that is normal. I felt the same way when I first [...]

Stamping It Out (Part II)

Craig Morris — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:57:43 +0000

If you have been playing the Stamp Warm-Up for the first time over the last couple of weeks, you are probably either already feeling some benefit from it or you are cursing the day you ever started this exercise. If you are in the latter group, take heart; it will get better with time, and [...]