{"id":6863,"date":"2019-09-05T15:56:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/?p=6863"},"modified":"2019-10-16T20:43:52","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T00:43:52","slug":"trombone-maestro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/2019\/09\/05\/trombone-maestro\/","title":{"rendered":"Trombone Maestro"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Doctoral student Alexis Smith (\u201922) on why the trombone is like a field goal kicker<\/span><\/h2>\n

By Marc Chalufour. Photo by Toby Oft<\/p>\n

Since picking up a trombone at 10<\/strong>, Alexis Smith (\u201922) hasn\u2019t considered any other occupation. The doctoral student has devoted her career to the instrument. She\u2019s the principal trombonist for the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, plays with the Boston Trombone Project (which she cofounded), and is a sales associate for S. E. Shires Company where she helps world-class musicians customize brass instruments. Oh, and she toured with Adele.<\/p>\n

First trombone encounter<\/h3>\n

I went to band camp\u2014it was like an instrument petting zoo. When I told my mother that I really liked trombone, she said it wasn\u2019t very ladylike and that I should try flute. I thought, \u201cWell, if it annoys my mother, I would like to play this instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trombone sounds like\u2026<\/h3>\n

We grow up hearing \u201cbom-bom-bom,\u201d like it\u2019s the buffoon of the orchestra. But, actually, the trombone has beautiful, lyrical capabilities. It\u2019s probably the closest instrument to the human voice because it can emulate all of these small notes.<\/p>\n

Trombone\u2019s orchestral role<\/h3>\n

I think of it as a field goal kicker. We don\u2019t do anything for a long time\u2014and then, at the most exciting part, we come in and everyone gets super excited.<\/p>\n

Favorite piece of music<\/h3>\n

Mahler\u2019s second symphony. There\u2019s a beautiful trombone choral in it. The New York Philharmonic did a 9\/11 remembrance concert and they played Mahler 2, the resurrection symphony. Everybody was sobbing.<\/p>\n

What you do as trombone sales associate<\/h3>\n

Every part of the trombone is customized from alloy to weight to tapers. We have musicians fly in from all over the world and they play for me. Then I fit them for a horn. It\u2019s a sound puzzle.<\/p>\n

Playlist right now<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m listening to a Balkan brass band. But my favorites are later Beatles and Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n

Strangest performance venue<\/h3>\n

I did a cabaret show at Joe\u2019s Pub in New York. They put me in a costume and I was like, \u201cWhat is happening?\u201d The night before, I was playing Elgar at Juilliard.<\/p>\n

Wait, we heard you played on a viking ship. Surely that\u2019s stranger than a pub\u2026<\/h3>\n

I forgot about that! The Icelandic rock band Sigur R\u00f3s wrote a piece for a brass quintet. We would get on a viking ship in Central Park\u2019s Harlem Meer and just drift around all day playing.<\/p>\n

Best Adele moment<\/h3>\n

She would start off the show with \u201cHello,\u201d which I didn\u2019t play on. I\u2019d listen to the scream of the crowd, the excitement, and people would be crying. It was amazing.<\/p>\n

Reaction when people hear what you do<\/h3>\n

They share that they played recorder as kids. It\u2019s like me going up to a surgeon and being like, \u201cWhen I was in fifth grade, I played the game Operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

What you would be doing without trombone<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve thought about this a lot. I have no idea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doctoral student Alexis Smith (\u201922) on why the trombone is like a field goal kicker By Marc Chalufour. Photo by Toby Oft Since picking up a trombone at 10, Alexis Smith (\u201922) hasn\u2019t considered any other occupation. The doctoral student has devoted her career to the instrument. She\u2019s the principal trombonist for the Southwest Florida […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6863"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7242,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions\/7242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}