Music is about communication. And the most important part of composing for me is collaboration. In this case with the trumpeter Marco Blaauw. He was the one who inspired me to write this concerto. We've known each other since 2005 and I've heard him play many pieces, but it wasn't until the pandemic that we started working together.
Marco wanted to play a number of my solo works that were not written for trumpet - including solo piece for bass flute and solo work for horn. I also have a piece for sho and electronics, sho is a traditional Japanese mouth organ, which Marco then played on the trumpet with electronics. It's important to me to write music where the soloist feels that the music can bring out the best in him. When I started writing the trumpet concerto, I was very familiar with Marco's playing of my own music. I sent Marco fragments of my music, he recorded them and sent them back to me. I then listened to his recordings and that inspired me to write the next part and so on.
A key question was how to make the trumpet sound sensual without giving the impression of a fanfare or any kind of powerful brass sound. I'm a big fan of brass instruments, but I don't like the typical brass sound in classical music. I recently recorded the album The Bow Maker with two fantastic trumpeters from the Nordic jazz world with the Norwegian sound artist Jan Bang.
The trumpet concerto does not contain any improvisational elements, but I am sure that everything I experience in life flows into my daily work.
DAI FUJIKURA