Concert 5
Orchestral Fire: Tchaikovsky
Brandon Pauley, trumpet
April 27, 2023 at 7:30 PM
Cailloux Theater – Kerrville, Texas
SPONSORED BY
CHRISTOPHER H. CHEEVER
Arutiunian – Trumpet Concerto
Brandon Pauley, trumpet soloist
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64
Our season finale brings the extraordinary Symphony No. 5 in E Minor of Pyotr Tchaikovsky to the Hill Country community. Tchaikovsky’s music is picturesque, exciting, and passionate. Interestingly, Tchaikovsky had a terribly difficult personal life fraught with political and social expectations that he could not live by. In spite of his unhappiness, Tchaikovsky composed music that is sublime and inspirational – this aligns with other “suffering artists” who wrote intensely profound works from the depths of their despair. We open the concert with the Trumpet Concerto of Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian. This work is one of the most often performed trumpet concertos in the orchestra repertoire.
Brandon Pauley is a trumpeter and bass-baritone from San Antonio, Texas. Pauley is an avid trumpet performer, having worked with several notable ensembles such as Kerrville’s Symphony of the Hills, The Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, The Wichita Symphony Orchestra, The San Antonio Brass Band, and others. He has also often performed as a singer in a variety of professional choral ensembles in Texas, Illinois, and Kansas. Pauley has been a faculty member at Schreiner University since 2020, where he teaches applied high brass, musicology, and ethnomusicology classes. He manages a private trumpet studio as well, working with students from multiple central Texas school districts. Many of his students have been successful at TMEA/ATSSB Region competitions and UIL Solo competitions.
Between 2016 and 2018, Pauley studied trumpet performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While at UIUC, he performed with the University of Illinois Wind Symphony, along with the university’s jazz, orchestral, and contemporary music ensembles. In the Spring of 2016, Pauley earned a Master of Music degree from Wichita State University, where he served as a graduate student assistant under Dr. Mark Laycock. While at WSU, he was a winner of the university’s Concerto Competition and performed Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Major with the university orchestra. In 2014, Pauley earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Texas State University. Some of his most notable trumpet mentors include Charles Daval, Ronald Romm, Tito Carrillo, David Hunsicker, and Keith Winking.
Outside of teaching and preparing for various performances, Pauley is an enthusiastic home-cook. He enjoys cooking in many different styles, but his specialty is Texas-style barbecue and smoked beef brisket. Some of his other favorite activities include spending time at home with his partner, Alexis, and their cats and bunnies.
Concert Notes
Alexander Arutiunian – Trumpet Concerto, 15 m
Brandon Pauley, trumpet soloist
Alexander Arutiunian
Alexander Arutiunian (1920-2012) was born in the brief period when Armenia was an independent republic before it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. His musical talents were discerned early and led to extensive training. During his career, he composed pieces featuring a variety of solo instruments. Armenian themes and folk music are persistent elements in his music. His trumpet concerto, published in 1950, is among his best-known works.
The Trumpet Concerto contains seven sections, but each moves without pause to the next. Opening with a fanfare that suggests a corrida de los toros (to shift to a very different nation) and concluding on a moment of high energy, Arutiunian wraps his brilliant themes around a quiet center, with the muted trumpet creating a kind of lullaby. We are fortunate to have Mr. Brandon Pauley, trumpet instructor at Schreiner University, to perform this exciting work.
Piotr Illich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, 42 m
Piotr Illich Tchaikovsky
A high Romantic composer, whose lush melodies and frequent movement from intense passion to melancholy, Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) showed musical proficiency early in life, but was directed to the study of law, as opportunities for careers in music were scarce in Russia. But after working for three years in civil service, Tchaikovsky was accepted into the first class of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Russian musical composition was still finding its legs in the mid nineteenth century. A group influenced by Balakirev, often known as The Five, were avidly pursuing a native music marked by “orientalism,” experimentation with various scales and use of folk themes; and they dominated the modest composition industry. They were resistant to the mainstream European musical traditions, particularly Germanic influences, and considered amateurs by the more cosmopolitan. Maturing as a composer, Tchaikovsky sought a path incorporating both musical influences, although to Western ears he seems inescapably “Russian.”
Tchaikovsky had a difficult personal life fraught with political and social expectations that he could not live by. For many, he is representative of the “suffering artist” who wrote intensely profound works from the depths of his despair. This brooding atmosphere is apparent in much of the Fifth Symphony, and it dominates the Sixth, composed shortly before his death. His Fifth Symphony is a striking work in that there is close melodic kinship in the main themes of each movement, though striking difference in the direction each movement takes. In World War II, the symphony was heard as an expression of final victory after great strife, a concept illustrated when its performance was broadcast from St. Petersburg during a German artillery barrage which failed to halt the musicians.
