Wednesday, March 08, 2017

The New Giants
For the past thirteen years I have been writing almost monthly articles, and most of those have been published in Pipers magazine, one of the highly esteemed band magazines in Japan. In these thirteen years, at once a month, that is close to 150 articles. Lately, it appears to me some of my articles are saying the same things repeatedly but in different ways. I will continue writing but I will also try and explore new directions and enter the new doors I see being opened.
There is a tendency in my generation to reflect on ‘the good old times, the golden days of our time, holding to a great belief in the merits of the past; that’s hard to do without feeling a little shame. In previous articles I’ve refeared to what I call the ‘10-year generations of brass players’, that every 10 years there seems to come a wave of new players. I’ve also used the metaphor as these new generations appear as students, grand students and great grand students. I’m proud to be the great grand teacher of many brass players in this world.
But something new is happening, not only in tuba, not only in brass instruments but also throughout the musical world. There is a new kind of musical species emerging who seem to be far more evolved than the icons that were part of my time. There seems to be a generation of new and far greater icons; these are ‘The New Giants’.
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” - Leonardo da Vinci. There is an abundance of highly successful students in the world now who have exponentially surpassed their teachers, their icons and their examples, which are so abundantly evident in our lives through the endless references that the Internet offers us. In one day I heard the Chinese pianist, Yuga Wang, (a friend remarked, “She’s from another galaxy”), a 3 year old pianist who seems almost ready to concertize. Within a few minutes I was listening to the 14-year-old French girl, Tina S playing the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on electric guitar; beyond belief! The list could go on regarding trumpet, trombone, horn, it’s a new generation of musical giants; our future in the musical world is assured of taking us places that we can’t yet imagine.
Just by chance, today (March 8, 2017) is International Women’s day; this needs to be addressed in the context of our “New Giants”. Unfortunately, in many places and categories of our world where the unjustness of sexism still exists, but at least in the western world, at least to me in my lifetime, I have observed the status of women in the musical world grow to being proportional and equal. Of course, there are occasional reports of favoritism, prejudice, sexism, nationalism and municipalism that appear, however, these stories are absolutely are not limited to women. Every competition, audition, and job application results in someone being disappointed and each of these disappointed people have a story, this is human nature and it’s us, those who hear these stories of prejudice, who must discriminate there validity.
It was my honor to have been on the faculty of the Musashino Academy of Music for 10 years of my life. I took note in the biannual exams that generally 60% of the trumpet players were women 80% of the horns, 60% of trombones, 90% of euphoniumists and 20% of tubists were women. A little humor a little sadness: I used to joke that 1 out of 3 young Japanese girls played the euphonium, very very very few became professional!
Although Japan has a good representation of women in classical music, I have seen in Holland, Italy, Switzerland and United Kingdom, a shockingly large number of Japanese girls fighting to find a way to not have to return to Japan. It’s true that Japan is behind the west regarding woman’s equality in the musical world, however, the “New Giants” are well represented on all the instruments; in fact, many of the top women brass players today are the examples of state-of-the-art in brass playing.
It was 75 years ago, while sitting on my father’s shoulders, when I first heard that incredible sound of brass instruments coming from a church tower on a crisp winter Sunday morning. I feel advantaged to have that retrospective, It helps me to have a realistic vision of what may happen in the future, it was magic then and I hope it is still magic now and in the future. The men and women of the “New Giants” are opening doors for us.
Roger Bobo, March 8, 2017, International Women’s Day