Benny Sluchin

Benny Sluchin is an Israeli-born trombonist, researcher and teacher whose career has combined contemporary music performance with mathematics, acoustics and the exploration of new instrumental techniques.

Sluchin studied at the Tel Aviv Conservatory and the Jerusalem Music Academy while simultaneously pursuing mathematics and philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was engaged as co-soloist with the Jerusalem Radio Symphony Orchestra before continuing his trombone studies in Cologne with Vinko Globokar, an important figure in the development of contemporary trombone playing.

In 1976, Sluchin joined the Ensemble intercontemporain, founded that same year by Pierre Boulez. His long association with the ensemble placed him at the centre of several decades of contemporary music creation. He participated in numerous premieres and worked with music by composers including Elliott Carter, Pascal Dusapin, Luca Francesconi, Vinko Globokar, Gérard Grisey, Marco Stroppa and James Wood. His recordings include Iannis Xenakis’s Keren and Luciano Berio’s Sequenza V, alongside other nineteenth- and twentieth-century works for trombone.

Sluchin’s musical activity developed in parallel with an unusual scientific background. He holds a doctorate in mathematics and became involved in acoustical research at IRCAM. His interests extended to computer-assisted interpretation and the application of digital tools to musical notation and performance, subjects on which he presented and published research. He also taught computer-assisted music notation at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

This meeting of performance and research is particularly evident in Sluchin’s work on the physical and acoustical possibilities of brass instruments. Multiphonics, mutes, pitch, notation and extended playing techniques became subjects not only of performance but of systematic investigation. His work frequently sought to connect what the player experiences in practice with the acoustical mechanisms underlying the sound.

Education and the transmission of instrumental knowledge formed another important part of his activity. Sluchin edited Brass Urtext, a series devoted to historical texts on brass pedagogy, and in collaboration with Raymond Lapie published Le trombone à travers les âges. His pedagogical publications include Contemporary Trombone Excerpts and Jeu et chant simultanés sur les cuivres, both of which received SACEM awards for pedagogical publications. He also undertook extensive work on brass mutes and their acoustical properties.

These interests are strongly reflected in his contributions to Brass Bulletin. Across more than twenty articles, Sluchin approached the trombone from historical, technical, acoustical and contemporary perspectives. His three-part study of simultaneous playing and singing examined multiphonics through both musical practice and acoustics, while other articles dealt with brass mutes, frequency and pitch, the alto trombone, instrument development and trombone repertoire.

His historical interests ranged equally widely. He examined the role of the trombone in Mozart’s sacred works, traced the history and twentieth-century orchestral use of the alto trombone, and investigated unusual developments in brass instrument construction. His contributions also included an interview with Michel Becquet and reports on competitions, workshops and international brass events. Taken together, these writings document a conception of the trombone in which history, acoustics, technology and contemporary performance continually inform one another.

Sluchin’s work also extended to projects involving the relationship between music and technology. His research informed recordings devoted to the music of John Cage, and he later made the film Iannis Xenakis, Le dépassement de soi, devoted to a composer whose work represents a particularly close encounter between music, mathematics and architectural thought.

Benny Sluchin’s contribution to the trombone lies in this unusual breadth of activity. As a performer he participated directly in the development of contemporary repertoire; as a mathematician and researcher he investigated the acoustical and technological dimensions of musical performance; and as a teacher and writer he sought to make this knowledge accessible to other musicians. His extensive writings for Brass Bulletin provide a particularly rich record of this dialogue between instrumental practice, history, science and musical experimentation.