[August 2 (Fri)] Tokyo College of Music Trumpet Department Off-Campus Concert

The Tokyo College of Music Trumpet Department's off-campus concert will be held again this year!

While the performers are primarily trumpet students from the Instrumental Music Department, several students from the Wind Orchestra Academy major will also be participating.

This off-campus performance has a history spanning over 30 years, continuing from even before I was a student. The style has remained consistent since then: the first half features small-ensemble trumpet performances, and the second half showcases a massive ensemble with all participants.

Since there is no such thing as a 50-part trumpet arrangement in the world, it is necessary to arrange the music each time, and I was in charge of it again this time.

I have written several large-ensemble arrangements (transcriptions) for this off-campus concert in the past, such as Respighi's "Roman Festivals" and "Pines of Rome," Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 5 (4th movement)," and Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 5 (4th movement)." However, since these works originally feature brass instruments prominently, it was relatively easy to grasp the image for arranging (though it was still difficult). This time, I received a request to arrange Rachmaninoff's "Symphony No. 2 (4th movement)," which is an incredibly high-hurdle piece.

Rachmaninoff's works (orchestration) have a very fantastical sound. If I may express it in my own words at the risk of being misunderstood, especially regarding this work, it seems to be written by layering various wind instruments that match each range, centered around the string instruments. Therefore, there isn't much of a concept of utilizing the character of each individual wind instrument, and I feel that the ambiguous sound created by such overlapping (covering and connecting) of tones, for better or worse, is what makes it sound like Rachmaninoff. In his later works, the orchestration changes significantly, and I have the impression that woodwind instruments are used quite effectively.

So, how can I express this sound with trumpets and a small number of low brass instruments? I worried about it quite a bit. I came up with the idea of using many unisons centered on cornets. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it a British brass band, I thought about whether I could create that "muffled" sound (not in a bad way) that occurs when a large group of people plays the same thing, and I tried various ideas while writing it. Honestly, it was extremely difficult.

But playing this might be even harder. When I first arranged for a large ensemble 12 years ago, I didn't know how well the students would play it, so I wrote it with some concessions. However, since everyone played it so calmly, I thought, "In that case, I'll write it to be more difficult," and for the next piece, I wrote it mercilessly. Even then, they still played it calmly, so I thought, "Then even more!" It feels like I've been following an evolution of ruthless arrangements in a cat-and-mouse game (though the difficulty this time has a slightly different direction).

Students have told me things like, "This is impossible!" "It's too tough!" and "Please give me a break!" but judging by the performances I've heard so far, I take those as mere social pleasantries. I am looking forward to them giving us another great performance this time!

Please come to the venue to hear the performance by the Tokyo College of Music trumpet students! The application form is also posted below.

Akira Ogiwara