By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Entering his fifth season as music director of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Alain Trudel is taking on yet another position – artistic director of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra.
The jazz orchestra joined the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts in spring.
The TJO was in talks with management of TAPA about coming under its umbrella. It was also looking for a new director, and inquired whether Trudel, who was a guest soloist with the TJO in March 2020, would be interested. He agreed. “If you want something done, ask someone busy.”
The Montreal native started out in music at 12 when he joined community marching band that played pop and jazz. By the time he was in his mid-teens, he said, “I was running from one jam session to another.”
When he auditioned to take lessons at the Montreal Conservatoire at 14, he didn’t know any classical music, so he played “Misty.”
He played well enough to be admitted. By the time he was 17, he was a substitute trombonist with the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit. He soloed with the orchestra the next year. His career shifted to being a classical orchestral player, then a renowned trombone soloist – he has about 20 recordings to his credit – before moving to the podium as a conductor.
His love of jazz didn’t fade. Those recordings include a 1999 Naxos Jazz recording , “Jericho’s Legacy” that aimed to blow down the walls that separate music.
“Now in Toledo I can express my whole personality,” Trudel, 56, said.
That will be on display on Sunday at An Evening With Alain Trudel at 4 p.m. in the Great Gallery of the Toledo Museum of Art.
It’s the first time he’s played on the Chamber Music Series, though he has conducted several chamber concerts. That’s intentional. He didn’t want to take opportunities away from the orchestra members.
Now entering his fifth year, he will step into the spotlight, though typically he’s quick to turn the spotlight on the musicians who will accompany him. Those include TSO members – concertmaster Kirk Toth, principal second violinist and artistic administrator Merwin Siu, , principal cellist Martha Reikow, and the orchestra’s keyboardist Valrie Kantorski, who will play harpsichord. Pianist Michael Boyd from the University of Toledo faculty will also join Trudel.
The music ranges from the Baroque to contemporary and includes Trudel’s composition “Grand Louis.”
The concert will conclude with Trudel joining Ariel Kasler, from the BGSU jazz faculty, on piano, and TJO bassist Kevin Eikum for a short set of jazz tunes.
This comes at the start of a season full of subtle references to Trudel’s early work here. He and Siu, he said, like to bury subtle meaning within the programs.
In his first season he conducted the orchestra playing the music of “West Side Story” while the movie screened, so in this season’s opening concert which was devoted to music inspired by “Romeo and Juliet,” the orchestra again played Bernstein’s music from the iconic musical. And the first piece Trudel conducted in Toledo was Sergei Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, so the concert included that composer’s Suite from “Romeo and Juliet.” Also in that concert, he returned to the music of Hector Berlioz. More French orchestral works will be programmed.
And there’ll be fifth symphonies, including by Beethoven and Dmitri Shostakovich, threaded throughout the year.
The programming demonstrates that the orchestra is coming all the way back from the restrictions of COVID.
Despite the difficulties posed by COVID-19, of the pandemic, the orchestra was one of the few to perform throughout the pandemic. That may have been in live streamed performances at first and then shows in the Peristyle with reduced complements of players, at first not more than a dozen. It meant for most of the 2020-2021 season the orchestra performed without Trudel at the helm because he was in Montreal, not able to return to Toledo. Still, the affable conductor made his presence felt, recording introductions to concerts. He even recorded a couple play-along with Alain videos.
That the orchestra kept performing, Trudel said, “is a great testimony to the resilience of the players” as well as their commitment to the community.
Last year, the orchestra was still operating in the shadow of COVID. With illnesses and vacancies, members of the orchestra had to step up, Trudel said.
On short notice, Kevin Schempf, the bass clarinetist, took over the first clarinet part on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 with its signature orchestral clarinet solo. “Kevin played it cold,” Trudel said with admiration.
With the retirement of Lauraine Carpenter as principal trumpet, Thaddeus Archer took over the first trumpet book.
This is testament both “the depth of quality players” both in orchestra’s ranks and within the area, Trudel said.
“I feel this is the first season we’re really back,” he said. The programs have pieces that use the full complement of players – six doubles basses, a full percussion section, and even a saxophone.
The pandemic did delay filling vacancies. There are now 12 openings, including, two trombonists, five violinists and timpanist – Sally Rochette retired.
He said he hopes to have all those vacancies filled by the end of next season, the symphony’s 80th.
Trudel said Toledo can be a place for musicians to begin their professional careers. Often they settle down, start families, and stay.
Since his arrival Trudel has maintained an apartment near the symphony office, including throughout the pandemic when he was in Montreal.
It fits his style, and is convenient, not just to the office, but to the Huntington Center, where he attends Walleye games. “I am a Canadian,” he said. He’ll often bring musicians to the hockey games with him.
“The Midwest style of living speaks to me,” Trudel said. “They have same philosophy as I have: You take what you do very seriously, but you don’t take yourself so seriously. You can still be a regular person even if what you do is extraordinary.” And that true of those in “our band,” he said.
That will be plural bands this season with the addition of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra. Trudel will conduct three of the five TJO concerts.
The first Nov. 17 will be a tribute to his late mother, A jazz singer who raised him on her own.
“Grew up with my mom. I grew up on welfare.” Trudel said. He was fortunate to live where he could get a free musical education, first with the marching band, and then at the conservatoire, where he learned classical music.
He thought about the songs she liked to sing, tunes from the Great American Songbook. Two noted local singers Ramona Collins and Kim Buehler will be featured on the concert.
On March 23, he’ll conduct a program of music associated with Duke Ellington using arrangements from the Jazz at Lincoln Center ensemble.
Trudel and the TJO will close their season in May with a tribute to hometown legend Art Tatum.
A virtuoso pianist, Tatum didn’t compose. But the TJO has located four short pieces he wrote very early in his career. Trudel is having them arranged for the orchestra by Richard Savignac.
Those arrangements will then be available so other jazz ensembles will have music by Tatum to perform.
The concert will also feature arrangements of songs, like ”Tea for Two,” associated with Tatum.
Being in Toledo, “we have to do a concert of Art Tatum,” Trudel said. “We have do whatever we can to help make his house a museum. We have to pay respect to that.”
