Cameron Pearce Photo: Lee Malzard Photography
"It's hard to categorise this music, but that's just fine," says Cameron Pearce of his debut album, Progression, just out on Rattle Records.
Composer and trumpeter Pearce took a sabbatical last year from his teaching job at Ara Institute of Canterbury to put together an album of compositions for brass ensemble. The tracks are performed by Symposium Brass and feature Canadian trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.
Photo: Unklefranc
Pearce spoke with RNZ Concert's Andrew Clark, who asked him where he got his inspiration for the project.
"There's a few angles, I suppose. I've been an arranger and... composer for a wee while, and most of my arranging has been either big jazz or big band based. Even the orchestral stuff has often been driven by a rhythm section."
"I wanted to write something that was brass focused, that initially had no rhythm section. The plan was that it would hopefully challenge me in some areas that I needed to get a little better at ... And also, I'm a teacher, I'm a trumpet player, I teach at Ara music programme and anything I can do to sometimes combine all those areas... a project like this ticks a lot of boxes."
Music from Progression in the interview:
Horizon (excerpt)
Interlude #2 and Coda
Apricity (excerpt)
