Program Note:
A Chromatic Octet was composed for my friend Ariel Legaspi when we were undergraduates together at USC. Ariel was completing an undergraduate degree in Music Education, and though he was not required to do so by the curriculum, he chose to give a full senior trumpet recital. Before he studied with Boyde Hood at USC, Ariel’s mentor was trumpeter Dr. Lester Remsen (June 17, 1918 – January 31, 2007). During his long career in Los Angeles, Dr. Remsen founded the Los Angeles Brass Society (1960), played in the principal trumpet Los Angeles Philharmonic (1950–1), and taught at the University of Southern California for twelve years. I had started writing a trumpet octet as part of my composition studies with Frederick Lesemann, and when Ariel was planning his senior recital, he asked if he could add the forthcoming work to his recital and dedicate the work to Dr. Remsen.
This through-composed octet draws its musical material from the motives in the opening unison statement. This piece is the result of Dr. Lesemann’s instruction for me to broaden my harmonic language beyond simple triads, increase my facility in varying deployments of a limited pool of motives, and explore the timbral possibilities of the trumpet ensemble. Members of the Thornton School of Music Trumpet Studio performed the premiere of A Chromatic Octet on Ariel’s recital on March 03, 2004 in the Alfred Newman Recital Hall on the USC campus.