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Fanfare

Trumpeter Chris Gekker opens his recording with Richard Auldon Clark’s questioning composition …and justice for all? Universal justice has been a civil rights goal for more than a century, but it’s still a social and a musical question. Clark describes the goal first with a clear, soft trumpet sound and then with the silken voice of a mahogany-timbred viola calling out in travail to the trumpet and double bass. Is it an unreachable ideal? Clark’s music inspires listeners to keep striving for real justice. Played with quiet perfection, …and justice for all? is good music beautifully played and it reflects cogent thought.

Lance Hulme’s Elegy for a Sultry Summer Afternoon is exactly what the title proposes. The listener can feel the heaviness of the humidity while enjoying the ever-fascinating close harmony of Chris Gekker’s trumpet and Rita Sloan’s piano. Their music also blends in dissonance as they wend their virtuosic way through flying chips of melody.

Moon Marked by Carson Cooman denotes the altered perception astronauts experience upon their return to earth. As the voyagers’ outlooks shift, so do the timbres and colors of the lines played by Chris Gekker’s trumpet and Suzanne Gekker’s clarinet. Husband and wife, they play with an innate togetherness that makes them appear to breathe for each other.

In Eric Ewazen’s Variations and Fugue on the Theme by Brahms, the piano opens with the original theme. Then, when Chris Gekker’s lyrical flugelhorn soars over Rita Sloan’s rippling piano, I am reminded of California’s Bridal Veil Falls with its thin stream of water tumbling gracefully onto mist-enveloped rocks below. Other variations create visions of skipping children enjoying the outdoors on a sunny day, and of mountain goats jumping from peak to rock, backed by the setting sun. I love the way the piano fades on the final legato rendition by the trumpet.

Clark’s three-movement Divertimento for Oboe, Viola, and Trumpet begins in a contemplative mode. Its theme suggests a tall sailing ship, propelled by a warm breeze, approaching a south sea island. The harbor is lit by friendly, if garish, neon signs. This is a divertimento for the 21st century that awakens a hunger for modern conveniences. Still in a dream-like state, the passengers escape their quarantined ship to an island that has never known the pandemic, unless the passengers bring it with them. Perhaps the smooth tones of the pianissimo trumpet are the magic potion that saves them all.

Inspired by the Robert Frost sonnet of the same name, Alistair Coleman composed his Acquainted with the Night while he was still in high school. It opens with the musical picture of a foggy night where a soft drizzle emanates from an occasional invisible cloud. A haunting, poignant work, it is pure musical gold from a very young composer from whom we can expect good things in the future. Franklin Kiermyer’s Peace on Earth for trumpet, clarinet, double bass, and piano is a musical retelling of the composer’s spiritual journey. His music may make the listener wonder what forms peace could assume in different places. With brass, woodwind, strings, and piano, Kiermyer communicates his mystical thoughts to the listener as powerful and affirmative music. An impeccable technician, at soft dynamic levels Chris Gekker makes his trumpet sound smooth-edged and radiant. He also has incredible control at fortissimo. Other instrumentalists on this pristine recording include Jason Gekker, double bass; Suzanne Gekker, clarinet; Mark Hill, oboe; and Rita Sloan and Lianna Gekker, piano. I really enjoy Moon Marked and I think readers will want to own it.