Category: Wheaton College

What is happening? It’s not all about you. Or me. It’s about the music.

by Douglas Yeo (October 15, 2023)

I retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2012 after nearly 30 years as a member of that remarkable institution. I use the word institution because the BSO was more than an orchestra. Yes, the orchestra itself was the raison d’être for BSO Inc., but there was so much that flowed from the decision by Major Henry Higginson to establish a symphony orchestra in Boston in 1881. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra—which is the BSO minus most of its principal players—Symphony Hall in Boston, the BSO’s annual summer festival at Tanglewood, recordings, tours. It’s all part of the life I led for so many years and I am grateful that I was able to live my dream.

In the 11 years since I retired from the BSO, I’ve been engaged in a host of interesting and very rewarding activities. From recreational trips with my wife and other members of our family, to the joy of living near our grandchildren, to writing many books and articles, to teaching in several colleges/universities (Arizona State University, Wheaton College (Illinois), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), to serving now as interim music director at my church, New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois, my life is full and interesting. Yet while I left the full time symphony orchestra world in 2012, I’m still interested in it. Now, however, I’m mostly looking at it from the outside. And with this new perspective, I’m increasingly asking myself this question:

What is happening?

“Time,” as the hymn writer Isaac Watts reminded us in his great hymn, Our God, Our Help in Ages Past, is “like an ever-rolling stream.” Times change, things change. Nothing stays the same. It’s easy for someone at my season of life to look back at “the good old days” and assume the ways things were done back then were always better than they are today. Through an honest lens, I can say that some things were better. But not everything. And part of getting older is seeing things change and evaluating them in light of the ever-rolling stream of the passage of time.

As a college professor and one who now sits more frequently in the audience at concerts than on the stage, I am observing many trends in the performing arts. Many of these flow from current cultural mores, the evolution (and let’s remember that evolution of anything is not always for the better) of cultural thinking and operating. Recently, I’ve observed and heard about some things in the orchestra world that have me asking,

What is happening?

To wit, I recently:

Attended a concert by a certain professional symphony orchestra where a member of the ensemble—who did not play in the second movement of a piano concerto—took a large sheaf of yellow lined papers out from his tail coat pocket, crossed his legs, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to read the papers—shuffling the pages—for 10 minutes while the concert was going on around him.
Learned that a member of a certain professional symphony orchestra was recently dismissed because the member arrived late to a concert and had to conspicuously walk through the orchestra to get to the member’s seat in full view of the audience.
Saw a concert performed by a certain professional symphony orchestra where a player had a rough time with a long, exposed solo—I’m sympathetic to the problem; it can happen to anyone—and while he was missing notes all over the place, leaned back in his chair and kicked up his legs, making light of the situation.
Learned that a member of a certain professional orchestra was recently dismissed for being rude and insubordinate to the orchestra’s conductor and playing inappropriately loudly after repeatedly being asked to stop doing so during rehearsals and concerts.
Attended a concert by a certain professional symphony orchestra where a member of the brass section added many extra notes to his part, took several notes down an octave, and generally obliterated the orchestra with his crass, loud playing. And at the end of the concert, he smiled broadly.
Learned recently that the trombone section of a certain professional symphony orchestra is “the most hated section in the orchestra” because they play so loudly and out of context.

What is happening?

When I joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1985, I was 30 years old. I was an experienced bass trombonist, having been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for four years, and having worked in New York City as a freelance player for five years. I was very aware of the storied history of the Boston Symphony, its long roster of celebrated music directors, and its unparalleled recorded legacy. I was also aware that Joannès Rochut, whose name is familiar to many of not most trombonists because of the three volumes of Melodious Etudes he arranged from works of Marco Bordogni, had been principal trombonist of the BSO from 1925–1930. I knew I was coming into something that had been around for over 100 years before me.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has traditions. Tradition is a word that gets knocked about these days. Many people equate tradition with stuffiness, with a “dead” way of doing things. But that’s not the case if tradition is vibrant. For the 104 years before I joined the Boston Symphony, it had evolved to do things in particular ways. The sound of the orchestra was rich and lush, a sound that was enhanced by the fact that the orchestra played in one of the finest concert halls in the world, Symphony Hall, built in 1900.

Boston Symphony Orchestra low brass section: Ronald Barron, Norman Bolter, Douglas Yeo, Chester Schmitz. Symphony Hall, Boston, 2001.

At the time I joined the BSO, there were members in the orchestra who had been hired by the orchestra’s music director from 1924–1949, Serge Koussevitzky, and many more had been hired by Charles Munch, who was music director from 1949–1962. A member of the orchestra’s cello section had played with Glenn Miller’s orchestra during World War II and was part of Miller’s group at the time Miller died when his plane’s frozen carburetor caused it to crash into the English Channel on December 15, 1944. There were men in the orchestra who wore a jacket and tie to rehearsal. There were certain ways the orchestra played, and the expectation was that new players would come into the orchestra and add to that tradition by blending with the rest of the orchestra while adding one’s own musical personality in appropriate ways. It was exhilarating. There I was, sitting in the orchestra’s low brass section between Chester Schmitz—hands down the finest orchestral tuba player that I have ever heard—and Norman Bolter—who had joined the BSO at the age of 20, a prodigy of epic proportions. Ronald Barron headed our low brass section as principal trombonist. Principal bassoonist Sherman Walt, principal clarinetist Harold “Buddy” Wright, principal timpanist Everett “Vic” Firth—they were all there, plying their craft at the highest level. I sat, I played, I observed, I learned, and above all, I fit in. Fitting in required a measure of humility. It wasn’t just because I was “the young guy” and I needed to wait my turn. No, this was normal, usual operating procedure. The goal of the entire orchestra was to present a unified musical product. And we did.

Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra brass section. Back row: Adolph Herseth, trumpet; James Gilbertson, Jay Friedman (with euphonium), Frank Crisafulli, Edward Kleinhammer, Arnold Jacobs. Orchestra Hall, Chicago, 1972. Photo courtesy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Archives.

I learned the importance of this when I was an undergraduate student at Wheaton College. I studied with Edward Kleinhammer, the celebrated bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1940–1985. In 1975, my wife and I attended a CSO performance of Richard Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie. I had never heard the piece before I heard it at that concert (imagine a time in the world’s history where there was only one recording of Strauss’ epic work—and I had not heard it) and I was stunned by the piece and the CSO’s performance. After the concert, my wife and I waited for Mr. Kleinhammer to come up the stairs from the basement of Orchestra Hall and when he arrived at the lobby landing, I blathered away about how amazing he was in the concert. He looked at me with a penetrating stare and then said, “If you heard me, I was a failure. You shouldn’t have heard a fourth trombone player. You should have heard a great orchestra.” And he walked away. I was stunned.

The next day I had a lesson with Mr. Kleinhammer where he unpacked his comment. He told me I was listening to the wrong things. That Eine Alpensinfonie was not all about the fourth trombone player—or the trombones at all. Yes, there were moments when the trombones had a melodic line. But for most of the piece, they worked in community, supporting other instruments. Mr. Kleinhammer told me, “Douglas, it’s not about me. It’s about the MUSIC.” It was at that moment that scales fell from my eyes. I was intoxicated with the trombone section and I missed the orchestra. I had lost the forest for the trees.

And, as God can only do because He is God, I came home from that lesson and opened my Bible and read something that got my attention and changed my life. In the book of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote about the church, and how a healthy church should be and act. He wrote (1 Corinthians 12:14–27, English Standard Version):

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

It was at that moment I understood the flaw in my musical thinking. I realized that playing the trombone in an orchestra was not about me. It was not about showing anyone else what I could do, it was not about strutting my stuff, it was not about calling attention to myself. The Apostle Paul’s metaphor for the proper working of the Church—the human body and all of its diverse parts, each of which has a unique function—was a metaphor for the proper working of ANY group of people. A friendship, a marriage, a football team, a business, a church. And a symphony orchestra.

It was then that I distilled Paul’s words into a phrase that I have repeated countless times to my students and colleagues (just ask them; they’ll tell you I say this frequently):

All members of the orchestra are equally important, but at any given moment, all members of the orchestra are not equally prominent.

This is what a symphony orchestra should be about. Each member is equally important. Whether playing the melody, or an underlying rhythmic figure, or soft whole notes, every part is equally important. Just like every part of the body. But when I have long soft notes to play, they are not as prominent as the melody played by the first oboe player. The fact that the oboist has the melody in no way diminishes my contribution at that moment. And if, at the end of the concert, the conductor asks the oboe player to stand up and take a bow and the conductor does not ask me to do so, that is fine, and I will join in the applause for my colleague. Because my oboist colleague was more prominent than I was. It wasn’t about me. It’s about the MUSIC.

If I had made it about me—if I had played my whole notes in a manner that brought attention to myself while obliterating the oboe player’s solo—I would have ruined the performance. So, I committed myself to being a team player, to being part of the body that is the symphony orchestra, and to understanding my role in the greater whole. And this I did—and do—in the service of the MUSIC.

Header graphic and title for Douglas Yeo’s article, “Me, Myself, and I—Are Orchestral Brass Players Losing the Concept of Being Team Players? International Trombone Association Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1, Winter 1997, 21–23.

In 1997, I wrote an article on this subject that was published in the International Trombone Association Journal (Vol. 25, No. 1, Winter 1997); it was subsequently republished in the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association Journal—the organization has since changed its name to International Tuba Euphonium Association—(Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 1997). My article was titled, “Me, Myself, and I: Are Orchestral Brass Players Losing the Concept of Being Team Players?” I wrote it in response to a trend I was observing—the very trend that, 26 years later, I am speaking about in this present blog post on The Last Trombone—where I sensed that students and colleagues were beginning to shift from working together to create a unified whole in performance to wanting to stand out and be noticed. A few months later, my friend Gene Pokorny, tubist with the Chicago Symphony, penned a response to my article that was published in the T.U.B.A. Journal in its Winter 1998 issue (Vol. 25, No. 2) in which he echoed and supported my arguments. You can read my article and excerpts from Gene’s response on my website, HERE and Gene’s whole article HERE.

Which brings me back to my question:

What is happening?

As Gene said in his article:

It may be inexperience which dictates some players to not be part of the team on stage but in many cases it is CHOICE. There are many venerable professionals out there who know how to be ensemble players but, for whatever reasons, choose to not be part of the group. Some of it is carelessness, but some of it is choosing to “get back” at a conductor, make a point to a player on stage, impress some friend in the audience, etc. Whatever the reason, the choice of not playing together with everybody else on stage is a mistake in which everybody pays for somebody else’s lack of maturity. . .

Yet, here we are in 2023, and I’m writing about this again. As I observe the ongoing evolution of musical art, I am seeing more, not less of this tendency to promote one’s self at the expense of the whole. As the examples at the top of this article show so clearly, the “me first” attitude, the “it’s all about me” attitude, the “who are you to tell me what to do” attitude is on display. Players want their students to think of them as “monster” players. A monster? How about being a great trombonist who understands the role of your part in the greater whole? How about some humility? How about an understanding of the difference between importance and prominence? And how about some respect for the music, for your colleagues, for the audience, and for the tradition and history of the ensemble of which you are a part, and to be, as Gene said in his article, “a cog in the wheel” instead of “the nut behind the wheel”? Nobody—including me—does this perfectly. But can this be the goal, the aspiration, something to strive for, and can we talk about this with—even call out— those whose inherent selfishness ruins concerts on a regular basis?

There are things to learn from the way things used to be done. From from our teachers, from the teachers of our teachers, from the people in the jackets and ties. Last week, I was talking with a friend about this ongoing trend of individual players who play in order to be heard and noticed rather than playing in order to support the whole product. Like me, he studied bass trombone with Edward Kleinhammer, and my friend I and frequently talk about the state of the modern symphony orchestra. In a series of text messages last week, he offered:

I miss the old days and our old role models.

Why is the easy stuff SO HARD for some people?

God love you, Ed Kleinhammer.

To which I replied,

Preach it, brother.

Last night, when I was reading my Bible, I turned to this passage (Jeremiah 6:16, English Standard Version) that reminds us of something very important. It starts off with words of wisdom but then observes the response of many people:

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

The ancient paths. The good way. There is a lot we can learn from them. When it comes to playing the trombone, I learned about them from Edward Kleinhammer, and I have tried to emulate his spirit of being a team player throughout my career. My students have heard this from me through my over 40 years of college teaching. There are many players who understand the Apostle Paul’s metaphor of the body and how it perfectly shows us how each of us is valuable and important to any task as long as we understand our role. But there are also many who are hung up on themselves and who ruin music and music making because of their unwillingness to be a team player. Guess what? People are noticing you. Just like the music critic who noticed the trombone section when he heard a certain professional symphony orchestra perform Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra (New York Times, February 15, 1995; review by Alex Ross):

The trombones, who had been emitting ghastly sounds all night, blared too loudly in the “Zarathustra” fanfare, obliterating the top trumpet line.

Yes. You’re noticed.

Will you join me and many others—like Edward Kleinhammer, who taught so many of us about this—in walking “where the good way is”? It’s not all about you. It’s not all about me. It’s about the MUSIC.

Orange and blue: University of Illinois trombones and me

by Douglas Yeo

My favorite colors are orange and blue. Why? Well, they’re the colors of my undergraduate alma mater, Wheaton College (Illinois). I graduated from Wheaton College in 1976, and I’ve been the College’s trombone professor since 2019.

Compact disc recording of the Wheaton College Trombone Quartet, 1974–1976 (released 2022), Like a River Glorious. James Roskam, Eric Carlson, William Meena, and Douglas Yeo, trombones.

Orange and blue are also the colors of the Chicago Bears. My wife and I are season ticket holders to Bears football. There’s a lot of orange and blue in our family’s wardrobes.

Douglas and Patricia Yeo at Soldier Field, Chicago. Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears, September 2019.

In November 2016, I traveled to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to give a lecture at the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, give a trombone masterclass, and participate as guest soloist at an Illinois football game halftime show with the Marching Illini Band. You can read about those memorable days by clicking HERE. And, what, you may ask, are University of Illinois’ colors? You guessed it: orange and blue.

In May of this year, I took part in the All-American Alumni Band reunion in Ohio. That was fun, and you can read about it by clicking HERE. Although I represented New Jersey when I was a member of the McDonald’s All-American High School Band in 1972-1973, I wanted to show a little Illinois pride at our recent reunion, so I pulled out the polo shirt that Dr. Barry Houser, director of the Marching Illini Band, gave to me in 2016.

Little did I know that just two months later, that shirt would have a lot more meaning for me.

Last week, University of Illinois School of Music announced my appointment as its trombone professor (Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Trombone) for the 2022–2023 academic year. At the end of May, the University’s trombone professor abruptly retired, and the School of Music reached out to several people including me to ask if we would be interested in applying for a one-year position. I was intrigued by the idea so I tossed my hat in the ring, not at all sure that everything could possibly come together to make it happen on my end even if the University turned out to be interested in me. As things turned out, they were interested in me and after several interviews, I was offered the position. After a lot of thought and prayer, I decided to accept, and in a few weeks, I’ll be in Urbana each week working with a trombone studio of talented players, and working alongside my good friend, Jim Pugh, who is University of Illinois’ professor of jazz trombone and composition.

Jim Pugh and Douglas Yeo playing Charles Small’s Conversation, University of Illinois School of Music, November, 2016

I also have another friend who teaches at University of Illinois—trumpet professor Charles Daval. Charles was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra during my first years in the BSO. This photo, below, shows the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa in a memorable performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 at the Philharmonie in Berlin, August 1984. You can see Charles on the far right and me behind him, playing over his right shoulder. Our second trombonist for part of that tour was Carl Lenthe, then principal trombonist of the Bayerische Staatsoper, and now Professor of Trombone at Indiana University. Ronald Barron is playing principal trombone. I plan to hang this photo in my office at University of Illinois, a reminder of how Charles and I find ourselves together once again nearly 40 years after we first met.

Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, performing Symphony No. 10 of Dmitri Shostakovich. Philharmonie, Berlin, August 1984. Charles Daval (far right), third trumpet; Douglas Yeo (behind Daval’s right shoulder), bass trombone.

When my appointment to the University of Illinois faculty was announced, flute professor and chair of Winds/Brass/Percussion, Dr. Jonathan Keeble, interviewed me for a press release. Here’s the interview, which tells a little more of this story:

What have been your favorite professional musical experiences?

Making a list of favorite musical experiences is like asking, “Which of your children do you love the most?” But if I had to choose a few from my long career, they would include performing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 2 with Leonard Bernstein in the National Cathedral, Washington DC, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 with Seiji Ozawa in Berlin, Josef Haydn’s The Creation with Simon Rattle in Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in Amsterdam with Bernard Haitink. And recording the film scores to Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan with John Williams on the podium.

What pulled you away from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and into teaching when you moved over to Arizona State University?

After playing in the Boston Symphony for nearly 30 years, I had accomplished every dream I had imagined as a member of a great symphony orchestra. My wife and I decided to retire to Arizona—we love the landscape and diverse cultures of the Southwest—not knowing exactly what was next for us but we were ready for new adventures. Then, Arizona State University approached me about accepting their full time Professor of Trombone position; I could not refuse. Trombone students at a university are interested in a host of artistic expressions: performer, educator, arranger, author, and much more. I am a trombonist who has been involved in everything – from performing the symphonic canon, to actively participating in early music as a sackbut, serpent, and ophicleide player, to being a New York City jazz freelancer, as well as a high school band director, and author of numerous books and articles. It’s through this broad set of experiences that I can relate to and help students who have many different goals. Engaging with my students at ASU and helping them to become difference makers in society was immensely gratifying but in 2018, we decided to move to the Chicago area. Grandkids can do that to you.

What about University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) coaxed you to come out of retirement for the upcoming year?

In 2016, I came to the Illinois campus on two occasions. The first was to give a concert in the Krannert Center with Philharmonia Baroque (I played serpent on Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks). The second was to give a lecture at the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, and perform as guest soloist with the Marching Illini at a football halftime show. I was impressed with all I experienced on campus, and when the University approached me about its need for a trombone professor for 2022–2023, the idea was immediately appealing. Also, I played alongside UIUC’s trumpet professor Charles Daval when he was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the 1980s, and jazz trombone and composition professor Jim Pugh and I have been good friends for many years. The prospect of working with them and UIUC’s talented students was simply irresistible. I keep flunking retirement but I’m OK with that.

Indeed, it seems as though you’ve hardly taken a breath since “retiring!” What is it you find most gratifying about teaching trombone?

Watching a student have that Eureka! moment when a concept clicks. When a student understands that making music is more than a job but it’s a calling, the intensity of the student/teacher relationship kicks into high gear. I have been fortunate to have many students who are passionate about positively influencing the world with a trombone in their hands, and the joy of working with them is incalculable.

**Who’s Professor Yeo when the trombone’s out of his hands?**

I love to write. In fact one of two books I completed last year is published by University of Illinois Press (Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry, co-authored with my friend, Kevin Mungons). My favorite non-musical thing to do is hiking with my wife, our favorite place to do that is Zion National Park in Utah, and we are Chicago Bears football season ticket holders. Our family bleeds orange and blue. That’s another reason why I’m very excited to be part of the UIUC community!

So, here we go. In a few weeks, I’ll be in Urbana teaching at UIUC. Orange and blue. That same week, I’ll be also back in my studio teaching at Wheaton College. Orange and blue. And a few weeks later, the Chicago Bears will open their season and my wife and I will be in our seats at Soldier Field, Chicago. Orange and blue.

They really are my favorite colors.

A “Senior” Recital—Celebrating the 46th Anniversary of Douglas Yeo’s Wheaton College Senior Recital, April 1976

By Douglas Yeo

The last consequential musical performance I gave before the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020 was a joint recital in St. Louis with my good friend, Megumi Kanda, principal trombonist of the Milwaukee Symphony. That recital, on February 17, was hosted by the St. Louis Low Brass Collective, and it was a fun and memorable time of sharing music and music making with friends and an appreciative audience. Little did any of us know that the course of the pandemic over the next two-plus years would greatly constrain public performances. While the pandemic is still with us—let’s not kid ourselves: it’s still wreaking havoc around the world despite our collective desire to put it in our rear view mirrors—we are taking tentative steps to regain the rhythm of life that we enjoyed before anyone knew what the acronym COVID stood for.

Last year, I wanted to give a faculty recital at Wheaton College. Since 2019, I’ve been Wheaton College’s trombone professor, and the College has been important to our family since the early 1970s because my wife, our daughters, and I all went to school there. For this faculty recital, I an idea. Instead of the usual fare—play several important pieces written for bass trombone—I envisioned a program based on several stories. On April 19, 1976, I gave my senior bass trombone recital at Wheaton College; I was 20 years old. It was one of several culminating events that occurred during my last months as a student at Wheaton College and it remains memorable to this day. As I reflected on that, I realized that 2021 was the 45th anniversary of that recital. Also in 2021, I was 65 years old. In 1976 I was a senior in college. In 2021, I was officially a senior citizen. So why not do A Senior Recital, and celebrate the 45th anniversary of my senior recital—as a senior?

But it was not to be. In April 2021, the coronavirus pandemic was in full swing and I could not give the kind of recital I wanted to give. I didn’t want to perform a recital in an empty room that would only be seen over a live stream. For me, concerts are collaborative events between performers and audience, interactive affairs where we all feed off each other’s energy. I put aside the idea of A Senior Recital for another day. And that day came last week.

Last Saturday, on April 23, 2022, I gave A Senior Recital, in the new concert hall in Wheaton College’s Armerding Center for the Arts. Now on the 46th anniversary of my 1976 recital, and a year older, I decided to give a recital that celebrated the spirit of creativity that infused my 1976 recital. I also wanted to perform on several different musical instruments that have been a big part of my life for many years. I spent some time during the recital in front of a long table that held all of the instruments I used in the recital and I gave a little talk about each one. A word about the instruments. Naturally, I played bass trombone, my Yamaha YBL-822G bass trombone. But I introduced the audience to some other instruments, too. Serpent, ophicleide, six-valve trombone, and my new carbon fiber conversion of one of my Yamaha bass trombones, made by Butler Trombones. “Yeo’s music store” was visible throughout the recital on a table on stage, and some of the audience reactions when I played and talked about these instruments can be heard on the full stream of the recital. More on that below.

Douglas Yeo talking about the six-valve trombone. Other instruments that are visible include serpent, ophicleide (on the table), and two Yamaha bass trombones, one with a carbon fiber conversion by Butler Trombones. April 23, 2022. Photo by Paul Schmidt.

Finally, I wanted to tell a story—several stories, actually. I wanted to tell stories about music, music-making, musical instruments, faith, hope, and love, and Wheaton College. So, I did.

At this season of life—I will turn 67 years old in a couple of weeks—I’m grateful for any opportunity I have to make music. While I don’t have my 35 year old body and I’m not able to do everything with a musical instrument in my hand that I was able to do in the past, I still like to play and share music with others. Whether in a recital, or as part of a church service, or alongside my wife, daughters, or grandchildren, music making has been a part of our family’s life for as long as any of us can remember. And for this recital, I was very fortunate to have superb collaborating artists. For five pieces, Dr. Michael Messer, a piano professor at Wheaton College, provided absolutely tremendous accompaniment for me. He is a superb musician and player—those two words do not always go together but in his case, they do, in spades—and collaborating with him was a real joy. Also, for one piece on the program, Dr. Tony Payne, a classmate of mine from my days as a student at Wheaton College who also now teaches and performs administrative roles including running the Artist Series at Wheaton College, played organ along with me. Working with these friends made the recital all the more enjoyable. For A Senior Recital, I chose a program that I hoped would be engaging for the audience, and from reports from people who attended, it was mission accomplished. We had a good time. So, in the spirit of sharing this model of putting together a recital, what follows are some links so you can watch and listen to it, too.

First, you can download the recital program by clicking HERE. The program tells a story, so if you take the time to read it, you’ll understand exactly what I was trying to do with this recital.

You can view the entire recital—from top to tail— by clicking HERE. This Boxcast link will be live for a year, until April 23, 2023. The recital was performed without intermission, and with the full Boxcast link, you’ll hear everything from Dr. Michael Wilder’s (Dean of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and Division of Arts and Communications) introduction to the moment after the last piece where our two grandchildren brought flowers to me on stage. You’ll hear my conversation with the audience about the music, and see me give brief demonstrations of all of the musical instruments I played on the recital. It’s all there.

I’ve also put videos of a few performances from the recital on YouTube—no talking or introductions, just the music. Those links follow here.

**Elizabeth Raum: Turning Point (2008)**

I’ve enjoyed playing many of Elizabeth Raum’s compositions over the years. When I was teaching trombone at Arizona State University (2012–2016), our faculty brass trio of John Ericson (horn), Deanna Swoboda (tuba), and me commissioned Betsy to write a piece for us, Relationships, and we recorded it on a CD produced by Summit Records, Table for Three. Click HERE to hear our recording of the first movement of Relationships, “Two Against One.” Her solo for bass trombone and piano, Turning Point, found inspiration in the Robert Burns poem, “To a Mouse,” where Burns penned the famous line, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” Indeed, we have all seen this line in action over the last two years of the pandemic, where many plans were upended. Turning Point speaks to this turbulence but it ends in a positive, hopeful way. Michael Messer is at the piano.

**Hector Berlioz: Oraison funèbre from Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, H. 80 (1840)**

Asking a person, “Who is your favorite composer?”, is a little like asking, “Who is the favorite of your children?” It’s an impossible question. But if I had to make a list of those composers who have inspired and challenged me, Hector Berlioz will be on that list. High up on that list. I have played a great deal of his music over the years during my long career as a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1985–2012). In 1840, Berlioz wrote a three movement symphony for band, his Grande Symphonie funèbre et triumphale, the middle movement of which is a funeral oration intoned by a solo trombone. I’ve known about this piece since I was in high school when I encountered it in Henry Charles Smith’s fine book, Solos for the Trombone Player (Henry retitled it “Recitative and Prayer”). Several years ago, I purchased a six-valve trombone with independent tubes, a creation of Adolphe Sax in the mid-nineteenth century. This instrument—its formal name is quite wonderful: le nouveau trombone Sax à six pistons et à tubes indépendants—was Sax’s attempt to create a brass instrument with valves that has “perfect intonation.” As brass players know, with a standard three or four valve brass instrument whose valves are used in combination with each other, the lengthening of tubing when using the valves causes intonation challenges. By creating an instrument with six valves—and the open instrument with no valves— that work independently (the valves do not work in combination), and each valve (and the open instrument) has its own independent length of tubing, certain problems with intonation that valves in combination cause are eliminated. But that’s not to say that all pitch problems are solved, and that, along with the fact that the fingerings are anything but intuitive, the instrument is quite heavy, and condensation from the player’s breath collects quickly in the small bore (.460″) tubes, led the six-valve trombone (and a whole family of six-valve instruments that Sax invented) to have its moment on the stage in France and Belgium for the second half of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century before it disappeared from the musical scene. Still, I enjoy bringing old instruments back to life, and while I have never succeeded in performing a piece on this instrument without making a valve fingering gaffe—my brain always wants to return to standard three valve fingerings, a consequence of having played bass trumpet in the Boston Symphony for many years—I like bringing Berlioz’s Orasion to audiences. In this performance I’m playing my six-valve trombone by Joseph Persy, a Belgian maker who was active in Brussels from 1897. Again, Michael Messer is at the piano.

Girolamo Frescobaldi, recomposed by Eddy Koopman: Canzone (Canzon primo basso solo, F. 8.06b, 1628)

Girolamo Frescobaldi wrote several works for unspecified bass instruments which I have played on many occasions. In 2012, I gave a recital at Arizona State University where I played Frescobaldi’s first Canzon on a bass sackbut in F with Dr. Kimberly Marshall playing organ. You can see a video of that performance HERE. I’ve also played it on bass trombone accompanied by piano. But I confess I never enjoy playing it more than when accompanied by Eddy Koopman’s creative techno-pop electronic treatment. The arrangement was written for my friend, Dutch bass trombonist Ben van Dijk, and I played it on the buccin (dragon bell trombone) in Nagoya, Japan in 2018 as part of the Second Nagoya Trombone Festival. You can read about that and see photos of that event HERE.

For my recent recital performance of Canzone, I decided to pair the oldest piece on my recital with my newest trombone, a carbon fiber conversion of my Yamaha YBL-822G bass trombone made by Dave Butler of Butler Trombones. I became interested in acquiring a carbon fiber trombone a few years ago in light of a number of challenges I’ve been facing with my shoulders, hands, and elbow. Over 55 years of playing the trombone—of lifting it up and down, holding it up, moving the slide continuously—has taken its toll on my body, and the idea of sometimes playing a lighter instrument is very appealing. I was initially suspicious of the idea of a carbon fiber trombone, but as I learned more about it and discovered that it actually sounds great, I’ve embraced this instrument as something that I use regularly. You can read more about my impressions about this instrument in an article I wrote for The Last Trombone HERE. With my carbon fiber trombone in my hands, I once again had the chance to bring Eddy Koopman’s take on Frescobaldi’s Canzon to a new audience.

Clifford Bevan: Variations on “The Pesky Sarpent”

My fascination with historical musical instruments dates from my childhood, when I spent many hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (New York City) musical instrument galleries. I wrote about my first encounter—as a young boy— with the buccin, the dragon-bell trombone of the nineteenth century, in an article on The Last Trombone that you can read HERE. I’ve been playing the serpent since 1994, when I learned it so I could play the serpent in performances of Hector Berlioz’s Messe solennelle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston, Carnegie Hall, and Tokyo. Since then, I’ve been an evangelist for the instrument. I’ve written articles about it (such as this one about serpents in collections in Boston, and this one about the serpent in the works of English author, Thomas Hardy), a book about it, and recorded a solo CD and an instructional DVD about it. I love this curious. odd, and old instrument that was invented in the sixteenth century.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know many of the world’s leading serpent players and scholars (yes, they do exist!). Clifford Bevan is acknowledged as the leading expert on the tuba family (he authored a book of that name, The Tuba Family, which remains the seminal and most important volume about the tuba and its ancestors, including the serpent). I’ve known Cliff for many years, and in 1996, he wrote what may be the first piece ever written for serpent and piano, Variations on “The Pesky Sarpent.” The piece takes its title from a nineteenth century folksong titled, “On Springfield Mountain,” which relates the sad tale of a young man who was bitten by a rattlesnake. Cliff’s piece includes the text of the song and in my performance, I began by reading the poem before Michael Messer started “The Pesky Sarpent” in dramatic, Lisztian fashion.

Sir Arthur Sullivan: The Lost Chord

Tony Payne, organ, and Douglas Yeo, ophicleide, rehearsing Sir Arthur Sullivan’s, The Lost Chord. Concert Hall, Armerding Center for the Arts, Wheaton College. April 23, 2022. Organ by Taylor & Boody. Photo by Marian Payne.

Douglas Yeo performing Sir Arthur Sullivan’s, The Lost Chord. April 23, 2022. Photo by Paul Schmidt.

After playing the serpent I turned to the ophicleide, a brass, keyed successor to the serpent that was invented in France in the early nineteenth century. The ophicleide has a warm, mellow sound, and it’s no surprise that it remained on the scene—particularly in France and England—until the dawn of the twentieth century when the euphonium and tuba replaced it in most settings. Unfortunately the lighting in the Armerding Center for the Arts Concert Hall organ loft was rather dark so the video quality is not good enough to upload it to YouTube. A few photos are above. However, an audio recording was made and you can hear my performance of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s The Lost Chord on ophicleide with Tony Payne at the organ HERE.

The recital contained other music as well, and as I mentioned earlier, you can see and hear the entire recital on the Boxcast streaming video. Before the last piece (more on that below), I welcomed to the stage four friends from my time as a student at Wheaton College. From 1974–1976, James Roskam, Eric Carlson, William Meena, and I had a trombone quartet on campus. George Krem, Wheaton College’s trombone professor when the four of us first met in the summer of 1974, suggested that we form the quartet. That group was a very special one, and to have Jim, Eric, Bill, George, and me together for the first time in over 45 years—I invited them to be recognized on stage at the end of the recital and we enjoyed some time together afterward—was very special.

left to right: Douglas Yeo, James Roskam, Eric Carlson, William Meena, and George Krem. April 23, 2022, Wheaton College, Illinois. Photo by Tony Payne.

The recital also served as a kind of release party for a new trombone quartet compact disc recording, Like A River Glorious. Well, a new but also old recording. This CD, which features both live recordings and recordings from a recording session our quartet gave between 1974 and 1976, was produced by the four members of our quartet and our recording engineer, Craig Ediger (it is not produced by Wheaton College, although College administrators have been very supportive of and approve of the project). We made this CD to celebrate the spirit of student-led creativity that was such a part of our experience as students at Wheaton College and we are giving it away as a recruiting aid for the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. You can’t buy it; we’re just giving it away. But we are reserving copies for prospective students; we don’t have the resources to distribute it widely by packing it up and mailing it to people. We will be getting the audio tracks available for free download soon—information about that will appear in a future article on The Last Trombone—along with the CD packaging. If you came to my recital, an usher put a copy of the CD in your hand as you left the Concert Hall. It is only 46 years overdue, but we finally made the recording we had hoped to make way back in 1976.

Joseph Haydn, arr. Donald Miller: Achieved is the Glorious Work from The Creation

My recital ended with a piece that was the signature piece for our 1974–1976 Wheaton College Trombone Quartet, Donald Miller’s arrangement of Achieved is the Glorious Work from Joseph Haydn’s The Creation. I was joined on stage by three of my current students at Wheaton College: sophomore Michael Rocha, senior Daniel Casey, and Senior Jonah Brabant. It seemed fitting to close the recital in a way that came full circle for me, from my student days at Wheaton College to my time now as the College’s trombone professor. A Senior Recital.

A new book and a special offer: Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry

In January 2014, I decided to write an article about Homer Rodeheaver, the trombone-playing song leader for evangelist William “Billy” Sunday in the first third of the twentieth century. I first learned of Rodeheaver a few years earlier when I visited the Billy Graham Museum on the campus of Wheaton College, Illinois, and saw a near life-size cardboard cutout of him with a trombone in one hand and a songbook in the other. The cutout was of the image of Rodeheaver below. What? Who was this? I had never heard of him and I needed to know more. It wasn’t long before I learned that Rodeheaver (one of the first things I learned was that he pronounced his name “ROW-duh-hay-vehr”) played the trombone for over 100 million people in his lifetime. That’s a lot of people. Did anyone play trombone for more people? Maybe Arthur Pryor? Maybe? I thought his story might be interesting. It didn’t take long for Rodeheaver’s interesting story to change my life.

Above: Homer Rodeheaver promotional postcard.

Several things flowed from what became an obsession to learn more about Homer Rodeheaver. The first was that I met Kevin Mungons, a Chicago-area editor and writer who had also been researching Rodeheaver. We were introduced by Margaret Banks, a curator at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, when I reached out to her with some questions about Rodeheaver’s endorsements for Conn trombones. Peggy told me that Kevin had been asking her some of the same questions a few years earlier. So it was natural for me to contact him and ask him some questions. We immediately became good friends (it didn’t hurt that Kevin also plays trombone).

Secondly, Kevin was very happy to help me as I worked on my article about Rodeheaver which, once completed, was published in the 2015 Historic Brass Society Journal. Click HERE to read and download that article.

Above: Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver, 1917. Courtesy of Morgan Library, Grace College, Winona Lake, Indiana.

And, thirdly, as Kevin and I continued talking about Rodeheaver, we decided that two heads were better than one, and that it might be a good idea—and fun—for us to collaborate and, together, write a book about Rodeheaver. Once we had committed to the idea, we did a deep dive into Rodeheaver’s life and work. Because Kevin was living in the Chicago area and I was living in Arizona at the time (my wife and I moved to the Chicago area in 2018 so we could live closer to our grandchildren), we collaborated mostly through phone and email. But we did meet up a few times, both in the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College, and in Winona Lake Indiana, where Grace College and the Winona History Center have a remarkable archive of documents, photographs, and ephemera relating to Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver. During our research trip to Winona Lake, I played Rodeheaver’s Conn trombone (below). Of course, I played “Brighten the Corner Where You Are,” which was one of Rodeheaver’s signature tunes (he also owned the copyright to the song, and the big money was, as Rodeheaver knew, in copyrights).

Above: Douglas Yeo playing Homer Rodeheaver’s Conn trombone, 2014, Winona History Center, Winona Lake, Indiana.

Homer Rodeheaver was not only a trombonist, and not only the song leader for Billy Sunday for 20 years, but he established the first gospel music record label (Rainbow Records), established what was, for many decades, the largest publisher of Christian hymnals, songbooks, and other music (Rodeheaver Music Co., later Rodeheaver-Hall Mack Co.), was a driving force behind the popularization of African American spirituals, and had an influence on church and community singing that is still felt today. The subject of daily front page news and feature stories and celebrity gossip, nobody during his lifetime (1880–1955) had to ask, “Who is Homer Rodeheaver?” But for people today, Homer Rodeheaver is the most famous person you never heard of. Until now.

Last week, after seven years of writing and research (not including the many years before we met when Kevin was also researching Rodeheaver), the submission of our book manuscript to University of Illinois Press, several rounds of peer review, even more rounds of rewriting and editing, our book, Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry came to market. It is published as part of UIP’s Music in American Life series of books. On Saturday, I held it in my hands for the first time.

Rodeheaver’s story is a rich story about music, publishing, Chicago, the Civil War, Jim Crow, race, the Ku Klux Klan, the perks and perils of being a celebrity, churches, money, religious devotion, Christian evangelism, community singing, marketing, airplanes, speedboats, philanthropy, Billy Graham and Cliff Barrows and George Beverly Shea, and the trombone. Lots of trombones. And that’s just the tip of Rodeheaver’s very large iceberg.

The back cover of the book features two reviews. Here’s what Robert Marovich, author of A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music, says:

Kevin Mungons and Douglas Yeo’s biography of Homer Rodeheaver brightens an important corner of gospel music history that has gone unexplored for far too long. What they reveal in their remarkable portrait of “Reverend Trombone” is a man both of his time and ahead of his time. It’s more than a tale of the emergence of gospel singing and revivalism, it’s a quintessentially American story about a quintessential American.

And Harold Best, emeritus professor of music and Dean emeritus of Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, past president of the National Association of Schools of Music, and author of Music Through the Eyes of Faith, wrote:

I am truly taken by the book. It is good, informative, comprehensive, and free of the usual assortment of clichés, academic hems and haws, and over-spiritualization. It takes the often over-simplified view of music and revivalism and exposes it to a fascinating cross-weave of thought, content, and context which, to my embarrassment, I thought I had already had a handle on. I recommend it without reservation. There is no doubt in my mind that general readers and specialists alike will benefit from reading this book.

If what you’ve read so far piques your interest, then, as the late night television pitchman says, “Do I have a deal for you!” Right now, University of Illinois Press is offering a 30% discount on the book, both the softcover and the hardcover editions. If course, you can pay full price if you’d like; just go to the book’s page on amazon.com. But if you’d be interested in paying less, click HERE go to the book’s page on the University of Illinois Press website and enter this promo code:

S21UIP

If you’d like to tell your friends about the book, click HERE to view and download a one page promotional PDF that has full information about the book and the same 30% off discount code.

After seven years of delving into every aspect of Homer Rodeheaver’s life, I still find his story to be interesting, informative, inspirational, challenging, and thought-provoking. I hope you, too, will enjoy the story of the man who called himself, “Reverend Trombone.”

Above: Homer Rodeheaver leading singing, 1950s.

The Last Trombone – Douglas Yeo

What is happening? It’s not all about you. Or me. It’s about the music.

by Douglas Yeo (October 15, 2023)

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

All members of the orchestra are equally important, but at any given moment, all members of the orchestra are not equally prominent.

What is happening?

I miss the old days and our old role models.

Why is the easy stuff SO HARD for some people?

God love you, Ed Kleinhammer.

Preach it, brother.

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

The trombones, who had been emitting ghastly sounds all night, blared too loudly in the “Zarathustra” fanfare, obliterating the top trumpet line.

Orange and blue: University of Illinois trombones and me

by Douglas Yeo

What have been your favorite professional musical experiences?

What pulled you away from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and into teaching when you moved over to Arizona State University?

What about University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) coaxed you to come out of retirement for the upcoming year?

Indeed, it seems as though you’ve hardly taken a breath since “retiring!” What is it you find most gratifying about teaching trombone?

**Who’s Professor Yeo when the trombone’s out of his hands?**

A “Senior” Recital—Celebrating the 46th Anniversary of Douglas Yeo’s Wheaton College Senior Recital, April 1976

By Douglas Yeo

**Elizabeth Raum: Turning Point (2008)**

**Hector Berlioz: Oraison funèbre from Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, H. 80 (1840)**

Girolamo Frescobaldi, recomposed by Eddy Koopman: Canzone (Canzon primo basso solo, F. 8.06b, 1628)

Clifford Bevan: Variations on “The Pesky Sarpent”

Sir Arthur Sullivan: The Lost Chord

Joseph Haydn, arr. Donald Miller: Achieved is the Glorious Work from The Creation

A new book and a special offer: Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry

S21UIP