Close to Home – Richard Harris

GENRE: Classical/Trombone
COMPOSERS: Joseph Arban, Jean-Michel Defaye, Arthur Pryor, Folke Rabe, Iannis Xenakis

Richard Harris, trombone 
Phil Fisher, piano

Whether its performing on OSCAR wining soundtracks such as “Joker,” the GRAMMY award winning album “Twelve Little Spells” with Esperanza Spalding, or recording solo and chamber music CD’s, Richard Harris has crafted an eclectic musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, educator and advocate.

Bluebells of Scotland
This was the first piece Harris played as a soloist with a band at thirteen years of age while a student at Bromsgrove School in the UK. It is a showpiece for the trombonist taking on the Air & Variations structure which was common for brass solos from the period. It is a tour de force of the solo trombone repertoire and was written by one of the most famous trombone soloists from the Late 19th & early 20th Century, Arthur Pryor.

Deux Danses
Harris chose this piece for the recording because he fell in love with it immediately after hearing it for the first time as a teenager being performed by Christian Lindberg. The opening 9th intervals of the piano somehow offer uncertainty and hope at the same time.

Keren
Iannis Xenakis wrote Keren in 1986 for the Paris based Israeli trombonist, Benny Sluchin. This was a work Harris has always loved because of the range of colors it explores for the trombone. The trombone as a solo instrument had largely been ignored by the major composers through the romantic and early twentieth century periods. As we entered the post-modern technology world of the late twentieth century, composers began to explore less traditional instruments whose colors more reflected the world that they found themselves in.

Basta
This is a real showpiece for a trombonist with a very theatrical bent. Musically the work involves a lot of extended contemporary techniques but is somewhat more humous and quirky in nature than the Xenakis.

Carnival of Venice
Here is a work originally written for the cornet and is another traditional air and variation. The high wire acts for brass players were once the highlight of music halls across the UK and they still play a large part in its brass musical community.