By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
At a time not all that long ago in a city not so far away, young Brittany Lasch heard a music teacher play the “Star Wars” theme on trombone.
Forget the fiddle, for forget the guitar, the Park Ridge, Illinois fifth grader knew what she wanted to do – play “Star Wars” music on the trombone.
In the intervening years , she’s moved on from John Williams’ stirring space opera score to playing in opera house pit orchestras as well as performing as a soloist in recitals and with ensembles around the country.
Lasch, who joined the Bowling Green State University faculty in 2017, is the principal trombone at the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra in Detroit. She fell in love with opera while a student in the Manhattan School of Music. Her teacher, Stephen Norrell has played in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1981.
He would tell tales of “this other world.” He guided her to recordings she should listen to, and when she wasn’t practicing or in class or working, Lasch would buy “nose bleed” seats and attend the opera. She played in school productions and summer festival productions.
Unlike in an orchestra, where often the trombonist sits for movements on end on stage, “like in an aquarium,” the operatic trombonist is tucked out of sight under the stage. “You get to listen to the best music,” Lasch said. “It’s a cliché, but it’s the ultimate art form.”
Not just the music, but the high level of skill of those in the stage crafts, stage hands, costumers, wig makers, and others.
From its early role doubling voices in church choirs, the trombone has been valued for its vocal quality. As court musicians they had concerti written for them. Until, that is, when classical composers relegated the instrument to whole notes and long expanses of rest.
As she was taught, so Lasch teaches her students. “If you do everything assuming it’s being done by a singer, it will sound good,” Lasch said. “Where you end a phrase, how you breathe, where you articulate and where you don’t.”
Lasch has put her love of the opera into a new collection “Book of Arias Trombone.”
The book includes 33 arias from Vincenzo Bellini’s “Norma” to Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” From such hits as “L’amour est un oiseau” from “Carmen” to obscurities such as “Chloe’s Aria” from African -American composer Harry L. Freeman’s “Voodoo.” The volume covers three centuries of music.
Trombonists drawing on opera literature is not new. “Melodious Etudes,” arrangements of vocal exercises for trombone, is standard literature for trombone students.
Lasch wants more than etudes. She wants trombonists to have access to the actual arias not just to get the vocal quality, but the dramatic as well. “If you play any of them with metronome, you’ll miss the entire point of the text.”
She includes the text both in the original language and with an English translation so the performer knows the emotional context of the piece. She also includes short descriptions of the opera and how the aria fits into the plot.
Published this spring, she’s already used these “to get students out of their shell,” she said.
She plays one of the duets with them with “a lot of embarrassing screaming and singing to get them to match my dramaticism.”
The book includes a QR Code that links to a website with recommended performances of the aria.
Because of the “versatile range of the trombone,” all the arias are in their original keys, and there is a link on the site to download the piano accompaniment parts that are only slightly edited at the beginning and the end from the originals.
“I always like things that if you practice them, you can get use out of them,” she said. “You can put them on a recital or performance.”
Her own favorites among the arias changes. She does love Lensky’s Aria from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” because “it fits so well on the tenor trombone.” The same is true of another favorite, “Casta Diva” by Bellini, which is the first aria in the book.
Some trombonists, she admits, may “freak out because of all the black ink” on the page. But with study, they should realize that the tempo is very slow, and all those notes flow so smoothly.
This is Lasch’s second collaboration with Price & Co. Publishing. She was a contributing editor on “Book of Solos Trombone.” But this was more her project. She always referred to the original scores.
Lasch’s musical training began with playing guitar inspired by an uncle, the only other musical member of her family. Then in fourth grade she took up violin, and then she heard “Star Wars” on the trombone.
Through middle school and high school, she played in band, orchestra and jazz ensemble. She knew she wanted to play trombone. She knew she wanted to study in a conservatory in New York City. So she graduated early from high school, and headed to the Manhattan School.
There she had a great teacher, she said. But “New York beat me up a little bit. I felt like everything after that point was easier. I’d been through the wringer.”
The competition was fierce, she said. Her sense is that even in the intervening 15 years things have changed. But then, she said, “it was very old world dog eat dog. Everyone was looking to sabotage each other. It wasn’t the healthiest, but those who survived thrived.”
Lasch, 31, recalls “I’d practice all the time. I had no social life .”
She worked as an usher and artist’s assistant at Lincoln Center. She was “put in her place” in those situations. “I don’t miss that job.”
She remembers physical altercations once at the beginning of a performance of “Messiah.” The venue’s new electronic ticketing system malfunctioned and patrons were getting to their seats late. They took it out on the ushers. The venue would book comedy shows and “always made money selling booze… an awful idea.”
From Manhattan, she went to study at Yale. After getting her masters, a couple opportunities didn’t come through, so she decided to pursue a doctorate at Boston University. There Lasch was encouraged to participate in solo competitions. “Those went well.” She also got experience teaching and directing a trombone choir.
Throughout these years, she would play in festivals and work in administrative positions. “I always tried to make my day jobs related to music.”
Those included Spoleto in Charleston, South Carolina and Castleton in Virginia. The latter was the brain child of Maestro Loren Maazel. While other festivals staged operas, only Maazel, she said, would build an opera house on his property.
All this experience meant she was prepared when, soon after she got her doctorate, several trombone positions opened up. One was at BGSU where the trombone professor, William Mathis, was becoming the Dean of the College of Musical Arts.
She was hired on a one-year contract in 2017, and then had to reapply for the tenure track position which she now holds. Having her colleagues select her a second time was a confidence boost.
The position with the Michigan Opera opened up soon after she arrived in Bowling Green.
Lasch has been active since then, including performing with the Bowling Green Philharmonia. During the pandemic she did a recital of music she has commissioned with herself and the pianist recording their parts separately, then combining them.
She also performed on the virtual New Music Festival in October. Then she performed Inez McComas’ “Unsheltered,” which incorporated a woman speaking of her experience of homelessness.
Before she played her part, she listened to the narration over and over, she realized she wanted to do more music with that poignant quality and social relevance.
She is now concentrating on commissioning more pieces for trombone.
That includes commissioning a piece from Reena Esmail, a prominent young composer she knew from Yale. Esmail was the grand prize winner of the 2019 S&R Foundation Washington Award. Lasch also won a Washington Award, which supports emerging artists, that year.
The piece will be for trombone and piano and she hopes to perform it next May in Philadelphia. “It’s a huge project,” she said.
“That’s where I’m shifting to,” Lasch said. “That’s where I can make the biggest mark expanding the repertoire.”
She believes “trombone needs to be elevated from what people consider it should be.”
Whether it’s arias or music for solo trombone, she wants the world to recognize the beauty of her instrument.
