Anthony Plog on Music

I first met pianist Katharina Kegler in 1992 when I auditioned for the position of trumpet professor at the Freiburg Musik Hochschule. Katharina was assigned to me as the accompanist for the short concert I would have to play and, unbeknownst to me, it was her first service since being hired at the Hochschule. So over many year we have not only taught together, but also performed together, both in...

Trumpeter Dave Bilger has had a stellar career as both a performer and also as an educator. He was principal trumpet with the Dallas Symphony, and following that, principal trumpet with the Philadelphia Orchestra for many years. In addition to the 27 years he's taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, he's also Professor of Trumpet at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music an...

Andreas Neubronner is a record producer and engineer who has won 8 Grammy awards. He has recorded great orchestras around the world and is known for his recordings of the Mahler Symphonies with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, his work with Baroque and Renaissance ensembles, and piano soloists Murray Perahia and Igor Levit. Andreas begins Part 1 talking abou...

In his thirty-eight years with the Utah Symphony , Nick Norton experienced all aspects of what it means to be an orchestral trumpet player. He began his career with the orchestra as second trumpet and after nine years auditioned for, and won, the newly vacated position of principal trumpet. Towards the end of his tenure with the orchestra, he moved to become a sort of roving section player. But in...

Bill Williams is a musician who has had a stellar career as a symphony musician, chamber musician, and soloist. But in addition to his performing, he is also a consultant with a wide range of clients, including elite performers and institutions, focusing on the tools needed to perform well consistently. On his website The Path to Optimal Performance , Bill deals with subjects such as stress and pe...

We begin Part 2 by talking about his time with the San Francisco Ballet and how conducting ballet is so different from conducting orchestras. From there we move on to the New World Symphony and the studying of scores in preparation for rehearsals and concerts, how much time is involved, and the strategy he has for score analysis.

In the Bonus Room we discuss Chad's book , "You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?" This is a book that offers many practical and usable suggestions for students graduating from college and wanting to pursue a career in music. It is indeed a working musicians field guide, and we cover many areas of the book. Students will find this part of the interview not only inspiring but very pra...

Chad Goodman is, to quote Christina Wallace from Forbes Magazine , "an entrepreneur bringing innovation to classical music." In his young life, Chad has started his own ensemble, the Elevate Ensemble, worked with the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Ballet as a conductor, is a Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony, and has recently been appointed as Music Director of the El...

We continue our conversation about experiences at Juilliard and then move on to their current jobs: Principal Trumpet with the Nashville Symphony and Principal Trombone with the New York City Ballet, and specifically what they experienced in their auditions for those two orchestras.

In addition to their new jobs , Will and Carlos have had experiences performing with other major orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, and the London Symphony. Our talk then turns to the future, with Will talking about his work with the Vennture Mouthpiece company, and Carlos about training to become an Alexander Technique teacher.

Trombonist Carlos Jiménez Fernández and Trumpeter William Leathers have already had exceptional lives as musicians, even though they just recently graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Juilliard. They already have great jobs as principal players (Will with the Nashville Symphony and Carlos with the New York City Ballet) and have also performed with groups such as the New York Philharmonic,...

In addition to the classical jobs she plays , Amy has also done some very interesting non-classical jobs, so we go behind the scenes of her recording sessions for Kendrick Lamar and Dave Matthews. Amy also talks about what it was like to be on the session that was a tribute to Henry Mancini, which included session musicians such as John Williams, Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. I also ask her wha...

We begin the Bonus Room with Amy talking about her 99-day trip around the United States visiting and photographing all the national parks during the first year of the Covid pandemic. Her life outside of music is as varied as her freelance life in Los Angeles, so we discuss other projects she's been involved in. We end this fascinating conversation with Amy talking about the house she bought i...

Hornist Amy Sanchez is a very successful and very busy freelancer living in Los Angeles. But she is so much more than that. In addition to all her various activities as a musician, she has also done a 99 day trip around the United States visiting all the National Parks, has become involved with NkombeRhino, a South African organization that focuses on the protection of endangered species (and in t...

A large portion of this second part of our conversation deals with performance psychology and dealing with Covid and the groundbreaking research Aaron is doing at the Royal College. In discussing that research we do a deep dive into distributed simulation, where students can perform before a simulated situation of either a performance or audition, a unique lab that I hope can eventually be used by...

In the Bonus Room, we first discuss the difference between stress and distress. And then we discuss how to relieve distress in performance situations, with Jason  talking about “flipping the script.” Dorico Professional music notation and composition software from Steinberg. Download a free 30-trial today! Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a comm...

Aaron Williamon is Professor of Performance Science at the Royal College of Music in London and is joined in our conversation by Jason Evans, who is head of the brass faculty at the Royal College and also principal trumpet with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Together we tackle the subject of performance psychology and specifically, performance anxiety. This is a very far ranging, open, and revealing...

In Part 2, Daniel talks about the beginnings of working for Steinberg and their culture. He then goes over the initial years of building Dorico from the ground up and the shift in focus once the product was available to the world. He discusses innovation and the goal of not just "building a faster horse." Finally, he talks about a day in his life as a product marketing manager. Dorico Pr...

In the Bonus Room , Daniel talks about the tight-knit nature of his team and how he views the success of a product. He discusses balancing priorities while still keeping an eye toward the future and what he thinks about the potential of tech advancements on the future of notation software. He briefly talks about his friendship with the prolific composer Derek Bourgeois, and finally, Daniel and Edd...

When I first began the podcast,   producer Eddie Ludema and I thought our main goal would be to dig deeply into what makes a great musician, and we had many fascinating interviews in that vein. But as time progressed, we noticed that our interviews were with subjects that didn’t concern themselves directly with performance and practice techniques (Hamido Fujita on A.I. and music, biographer Jan Sw...

The members of Seraph Brass are entrepreneurs in addition to being musicians, and we begin Part 2 by discussing the workshops they give on entrepreneurship. We then move on to touring and what it is like to play in different countries with varying cultures. We close this part with a discussion of how the group goes about commissioning works. Dorico Professional music notation and composition softw...

An important aspect of any chamber music group is repertoire , so we talk about how Seraph Brass chooses theirs and how they go about rehearsing before and during a tour. We end with a discussion of a concert done the night before our conversation... a work by Anthony DiLorenzo (Chimera) performed with the U.S. Army Band, Pershing's Own. Dorico Professional music notation and composition soft...

Seraph Brass is in its ninth season and began as a group dedicated to "elevating and showcasing the excellence of female brass players and highlighting musicians from marginalized groups both in personnel and in programming." It is a group consisting of five to six core artists, along with a group of guests who also perform with the group. My conversation today was with founder and trump...

In Part 2, we continue our discussion about composition , including aspects such as revision, notation, writing in bursts rather than with a regular schedule (and why composing for very long hours is a joy), separating composing from clarinet and conducting, dealing with being writer's block, and working with Pierre Boulez. We end Part 2 by talking about his conducting career... how he got st...

Jörg Widmann is also recognized as an internationally acclaimed clarinet soloist , so we begin the Bonus Room by talking about that aspect of his career. We also discuss further how he balances his schedule between composing, clarinet, and conducting (spoiler alert... he really doesn't!), and then we talking about a number of different subjects, such as different national styles of composing,...