Mary Elizabeth Bowden: Storyteller: Contemporary Concertos for Trumpet
Cedille Records

Storyteller represents the fullest realization to date of classical trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden's desire to establish a vital contemporary repertoire for her instrument. Bold strides were made in that regard on her earlier solo releases, Radiance (2015) and Rêverie (2019), as well as on her album with Seraph Brass, Asteria, in 2018. Storyteller takes the concept to a whole other level, however, in devoting itself to world-premiere recordings of concertos by six living composers: Reena Esmail, Sarah Kirkland Snider, James M. Stephenson, Clarice V. Assad, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Vivian Fung. Recorded between 2021 and 2024, the sixty-eight-minute release impresses on multiple counts. Of course Bowden's technique is such that she's capable of executing the most difficult material written for trumpet and is able to express the fullest range of emotion through the horn too. Her acumen as a curator shows itself to be as impressive in the mix of uniformly strong pieces she's assembled. She's not alone in the endeavour, however, and for her first Cedille Records release she's joined by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Allen Tinkham.

The album's neatly framed by two Stephenson works, The Storyteller first and the irreverent Scram! bringing up the rear. The more impactful of the two is the opener, however, for so vividly paying homage to Adolph “Bud” Herseth (1921-2013), who was Principal Trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for more than half a century and who the composer calls “perhaps the best orchestral trumpet player the world has ever known.” As one might expect, Stephenson, who played trumpet before shifting his focus to composing, aspired to relay the trumpeter's story through this dignified tribute. Bowden's unerring control and refined tone distinguish the work's tender opening and remain solidly in place for the emotional outpourings and expansive gestures that follow. The composer's affection for Herseth is evident throughout but perhaps most of all in the inclusion of an offstage trumpet solo (played by David Dash) that alludes to the late legend. Conceived as a companion piece to The Storyteller (even if the two are drastically contrasting in tone), the florid Scram! was written, in Stephenson's words, as “a fun encore for my friends at the U.S. ‘President's Own' Marine Band.” Also featuring Dash as Bowden's trumpet partner, Tyson Davis's Veiled Light for Two Trumpets and String Ensemble musically interprets the painting Nocturne in Black and Red by American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Marked “Sospeso, pensive,” the first movement is slow and cryptic, its haunting quality amplified by the to-and-fro of the horns amidst the strings' chromatically shifting harmonies. The comparatively agitated “Skittish, marcato” perpetuates the conversational relationship between the trumpets but this time punctuates it with Psycho-like string stabs.

For her three-part Bohemian Queen: Concerto for Trumpet and String Orchestra, Assad drew for inspiration from the life and surrealist art of Chicago-based American painter Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-77), known as “the queen of the bohemian artists” and a well-known figure in Chicago jazz circles. The opening two movements are titled after paintings from the 1940s, “Girl Searching” offering Bowden a wonderful opportunity to flex her facility as a soloist and showcase her polished sound and “The Stroll” providing the same. Subtle inflections of jazz emerge in the latter, though its material more generally exudes the romantic languour characteristic of a classic American songbook ballad. The liveliest movement is “Hyde Park Jam,” naturally, whose snappy swing Bowden attacks with the fervour of a toreador. Snider's Caritas was originally scored as a song for mezzo-soprano based on texts by twelfth-century visionary Hildegard von Bingen, but the composer newly arranged it for flugelhorn, string orchestra, and harp for Bowden's project. Tinges of supplication and yearning permeate the setting as the soloist glides gracefully across a restlessly churning base of bowed and plucked strings. Inspired by Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII, Esmail's haunting, mystery-laden meditation Rosa de Sal for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra is based on the Hindustani raag Puriya Dhanashree and consistent with that merges elements of Western and Eastern musical traditions.

August 2024