This week on Great Arts at Eastern, Jeff Gentry talks with Ronald Romm, Professor of Trumpet at the University of Illinois. Ronald Romm leads the Romm Trio that will be performing Thursday, January 23rd, in Portales, New Mexico.
Ronald Romm reminiscence on how he met his fellow members of the Romm trio.
"Well, let's see, my wife Avis and I Met at the Juilliard school. Many many years ago. More than she would like me to tell you. And we met in an ear training class with Madame Lhévinne, who is quite famous for having extensively flunked Leonard Bernstein in ear training for not working up to his capacity. And for me it was love at first sight. I'm not sure about whether Avis felt that way, but for me, it was incredible. And we fell in love and got married and some years later had our first son who is not a professional musician but he is very musically orientated and our second son Aaron came four years later. Aaron is a wonderful trumpeter, and he has his VMA from the University of Illinois. He teaches and he performs. And he is living in Florida where the weather is significantly more balmy that it is here in Illinois. "
"After years of performing together, can Avis Romm read your mind on stage?" Jeff asked Ronald Romm during his interview. Ronald replied: "You know it is a very interesting thing. The three of us felt as though we are of one brain. "with Avis accompanying on piano And you and Aaron. Both play trumpet
With the concert coming up on Thursday, Ronald talks about what sorts of musical selections the audience can expect tomorrow evening. "It is going to be a very very persified program there. We're going to start out with the ritual fire dance by De Falla, then we are going to play some Rachmaninoff, play some Bach, and we're going to premiere a new piece, A reed in the Forest by Taz Reston who is a Floridian composer now. He is also A Juilliard graduate, a trumpeter, and a wonderful composer. So will be performing this brand new piece. Then we have some Revell and we have some opera persions, some Humperdinck, Mozart, Bizet. So it is a really mixed program."
When asked about what advice to give a young musician with lofty goals, Ronald stated:
"The biggest piece of advice is to refuse to quit. The only way to fail is to quit. So they can, if you're not arriving at your goal immediately, be patient but be relentless."
When asked about what his favorite memory was in his three decades with the Canadian Brass. Ronald Romm stated:
"I think that the most exciting thing was that, and it is a global memory. More than one particular event is the fact that we sent pretty much 30 years together discussing, loving music, arguing about anything that we could argue about. But when we got on stage it was all harmony. And so I remember Many Many Many exciting moments. But globally, the experience was astounding."
The Romm Trio concert is Thursday, January 23rd at 7:00 pm in Buchanan Hall in Portales, New Mexico.
All the great arts at Eastern are found at <enmu.edu/fineartsevents> And learn more about this program at KENW.org.