trumpet player with the New York

Philharmonic.

So I started playing the trumpet when I

was ten years old. I took a class at the

Interlochen Arts Camp my first summer

there, and it was called "Instrument

Exploration," and every day we tried a

different instrument, and when we got to

the trumpet, it was kind of, I guess,

an immediate love affair.

I grew up in Chicago, just outside of

Chicago, and my parents would drag me to

Chicago Symphony concerts. So I grew

up listening to the legendary "Bud" Herseth,

who was the principal trumpet of the Chicago

Symphony for 50-plus years. I remember

immediately being drawn to his sound.

I attended the Northwestern University

School of Music. I was there at the same

time as Matt Muckey, who is the Associate

Principal Trumpet here in the New York

Philharmonic. Who would have thought

while we were in school that we would be

colleagues someday. And now, with the

addition of Chris Martin, he also

studied with the same teachers as Matt

and I. It's very cool to be in the same

section with people who have the same

sound concept, just the same idea of what

it's like to play the trumpet.

Chris just got here not too long

ago, and it's been an immediate click

from the beginning. The principal trumpet,

it's his or her job to kind of create

the mold of the sound of what the

section should fit into. And the section

is, the section's job to fit into the mold.

I play a lot of second trumpet, and

so it's my job really to make the first

trumpet sound good. So it's my goal every

year to kind of win the Best Supporting

Actor award. I do have a cute dog. I have a

five-year-old Vizsla. She's great. I take

her on runs. I take her to the park.

I've never been a dog person before I

got her. I grew up with cats.

I had a really, really fat cat. His name was

Tigger, and he weighed about 40 pounds,

and my uncle nicknamed him "Speed Bump,"

because he would just sit in the

middle of the floor, and people would trip over him.

Two memorable concerts come to mind;

the first one is Maestro Lorin Maazel's

final concert at Lincoln Center with the New

York Philharmonic as Music Director.

We did Mahler 8 — epic, epic symphony.

Another one was when we did Mahler 2 live on TV

for the ten-year anniversary of 9/11.

I've never felt the energy quite like

there was that night, on that concert, in the

Orchestra. The emotion was so high, and we

all just came together and elevated

everything. Everything was on another

level that I had never experienced before,

and you know the context of the piece,

and also the context of the event, and

the fact that we are live on TV. All

of these things were just like elevating

the entire Orchestra, and Alan Gilbert

included, the whole thing was just so

memorable and so emotional.