Our son Nicholas is one month old today, so it seemed a fitting time to jot down some thoughts about the past few weeks, and to look ahead to what the summer has in store. Things have been a bit hectic around the house, to say the least, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. After the birth I took a few days off from the horn, and it was wonderful not to worry about work, horn playing, or anything else except taking care of our child. Although we haven’t exactly settled into a routine yet with the baby, I’ve been fortunate (thanks to my wife!) to be able to work in some practice time each day on the horn. Things were slow going for the first week or so after taking time off – 30 minutes here and there, then 40 minutes, and so on – but I’m pretty much back in shape. This is none too soon, as I have a recital coming up on Tuesday for a local church’s summer concert series. These summer concerts are great fun, and are free admission. For this recital two of my colleagues and I will be reprising our program from a few months back, which features music by Portuguese composer Eurico Carrapatoso.

In other horn-related news I’m very excited to announce the release of my solo CD Jan Koetsier: Music for Horn on the MSR Classics label. This project has been a tremendous learning experience, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to do it. If you’d like to read my previous articles about the recording process, you can do so at these links. Please excuse my less than creative titles for these posts!

• Preparing for a Recording Session
• Notes from a Recording Session
• Notes from a Recording Session, Part 2: Editing
• More Notes from a Recording Session
• Recording Project Update
• Recording Project Update: First Edits and Beyond

If you are considering a project of your own I hope that you’ll find these candid and somewhat informal ramblings helpful, or at the very least entertaining. Although I had listened to the final .wav files for the master recording, it somehow seemed different (in a good way) to actually put the finished product into my computer’s optical drive and just sit back and listen. There is a brief sample on MSR’s website (see link above), and here are a few more short clips. I might also add that the CD not only sounds good, but looks fantastic thanks to cover art by Markus Bleichner and design and layout by Rob LaPorta and the folks at MSR.

Romanza, Op. 59, No. 2

If you like what you hear, I hope that you will consider purchasing the entire CD. For now, you can order it from the MSR website, but in the near future the album will also be available for digital download from Amazon.com and other distributors. Check back here for updates! As for the rest of the summer, I’ll be staying close to home for the most part, although I plan to keep posting here every week or two. Although I haven’t been writing much for the last few weeks, I did jot down some ideas for at least a dozen or so new articles, including reviews of recent books and recordings. For fans of my Kopprasch Project, I plan to get at least a few more etudes recorded this summer, hopefully completing the final ten studies by the end of this year. Looking towards the end of the summer – which will be here in the blink of an eye – I’ll be gearing up to perform at the 45th International Horn Symposium, July 29th-August 3rd at the University of Memphis. As always, this year’s symposium promises to be an extravaganza of all things horn. If you are anywhere near Memphis, TN (or even if you’re not), you won’t want to miss it!