Professional Life

Part 2

Arnold Jacobs

Interview

From Curtis to Chicago, a tuba player's path crosses Reiner, Koussevitzky and Ormandy, while teaching evolves toward breathing, thought and musical function.

By Roger Bobo

Meir Rimon

Portrait and conversation

Orchestral discipline, solo freedom and an endless appetite for learning shaped Meir Rimon’s horn playing across Israeli, European and American traditions.

By Jeffrey Agrell

Part 1

Anton Hansen (1877-1947)

Father of trombone playing in Scandinavia

From Nørrebro cafés to the Royal Orchestra, Anton Hansen’s early years reveal the shift from valve to slide trombone in Scandinavian orchestras.

By Per Gade

What's your proper job?

A social portrait of the British brass player

Four British brass players confront a profession transformed by orchestras, freelance work, social prejudice and the shrinking certainties of musical life.

By Thomas Aitken

Part 5

The Trumpet in the USA

The Confidence Pill

Stage fright meets medical research as performers, physicians and early beta-blocker studies reshape the debate over confidence, fairness and public performance.

By Thomas Stevens

Part 2

The trombone in Maurice Ravel's Boléro

Boléro as ordeal: Jean Douay reveals stage fright, pressure, and the weight of the final solo—where one moment can elevate or undermine the entire orchestra.

By Jean Douay

Part 3

How and why I became a musician

As cinema orchestras vanished and radio reshaped musical life, Edouard Gros learned that survival could mean changing instruments, cities and expectations.

By Edouard Gros

Benny Sluchin

Portrait in brief

Between Paris, Cologne and Tel Aviv, Benny Sluchin brings mathematics, acoustics and contemporary performance into the brass world.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Brass studies in Australia

As international performers, seminars and teachers reached Australia in the late 1970s, a geographically isolated brass scene began finding its own direction.

By David O'Meara