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Adam Zinatelli started playing the trumpet when he was in Grade 7. Some years later, when he was in Grade 12, he heard Mahler’s third symphony at the Glenn Gould School. “When I left that concert,” he says, “I knew that this was what I wanted to do.”
The eager trumpet player went on to study at both the Glenn Gould School (Royal Conservatory of Music), and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has since appeared with orchestras across Canada, and has held the position of principal trumpet with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) since 2009.
Ever since he was a student, Zinatelli has been interested in collaborating with and commissioning composers to write new works for trumpet. It was this inclination that led him to co-found the Reveille Trumpet Collective, a group consisting of Thomas Bergeron, Joel Brennan, Aaron Hodgson, Timothy Quinlan, and Zinatelli himself, dedicated to the performance of new works for trumpet.
Zinatelli’s commitment to expanding the solo-trumpet repertoire manifests itself on “Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky,” his first solo album. The project features première recordings of 10 pieces, all of which have been commissioned for him or his friends and colleagues over the course of his career. He was first inspired to take on a project of this nature when he commissioned William Rowson to write his Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, back when the two of them were still in school. “It was an eye opener, a real wake-up call,” he says, as it showed him the “power of getting in touch with a composer.” Zinatelli felt that collaborating with composers to produce new works for trumpet players was a means through which he could “contribute (to the trumpet community) in a meaningful way.”
While some of the works on the album, like Gabriel Dharmoo’s Sung in a Rickshaw, have been performed before, others were composed specifically for this recording. Such is the case with Dorothy Chang’s All that Glitters. Zinatelli became fond of Chang’s work when the CPO performed her piece Northern Star. All that Glitters is “expressive, serious, passionate, and heartfelt.” He describes her musical style as “lucid, yet atmospheric.”
“I was taken by the musical colours, the perfectly constructed feelings,” he notes, pointing out that this is a style of writing “brass players don’t really have in solo repertoire.” Zinatelli performs Chang’s piece with pianist Akiko Tominaga.
Alongside Tominaga, Zinatelli is joined by colleagues from throughout his career. Aaron Hodgson plays on Eric Nathan’s Four Sculptures, which he describes as the “most substantial piece for two trumpets” he has ever heard. The “intricate dialogue between the two instruments” is interpreted by Zinatelli and his “oldest trumpet friend.” This recording will serve as a “definitive document of the piece, and of our friendship,” he says.
Zinatelli’s website has been updated with links to the scores for all of the pieces on “Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky.” This, he says, is because he hopes they will make their way onto music stands, into student recitals, and beyond. Zinatelli considers this work to be part of his responsibility “to propagate and further the art.”
“The power of a recording is huge,” he says. He hopes that by making this new music easily accessible to both players and audiences, he will “push the repertoire in new directions.”
Listen to Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky at www.leaf-music.lnk.to/lm282
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
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