The “In the Studio” series was held on Zoom on Sept. 24 before discussed special guest’s Alphonso Horne’s life and career as a trumpet player.
The event was hosted by director of bands and music professor, Maxwell Kiesner, who is also a trumpeter and a friend to Horne.
“I’m a trumpet player and kind of bonded with this individual for the love and challenge of playing trumpet,” Kiesner said.
This ongoing online series has been going on for music students during the pandemic.
“For me, this whole series is about demystifying what it means to be a musician and to try to provide a pathway forward for our students to try to provide this practical guidance,” Keisner said.
Horne gave audience members who may not be familiar with the life of a working musician a better understanding of what their lives usually look like.
“I landed at 6:30 p.m., had to record a session right after I just drove straight to the recording session that went till midnight, and I had another recording the following morning, and rehearsals and gigs. So I bet I actually have a gig right after this. So, you know, kind of busy already again,” Horne said.
After Horne’s recap of his busy schedule, Kiesner followed up addressing how there can be a misconception of how musicians spend their time.
“You know it’s funny though because like we think of musicians often like these people who sit in a room and ponder their own creativity and the meaning of life and music just spills out of them,” Kiesner said.
Horne agreed with the misconception, “wouldn’t that be wonderful,” Horne said.
The audience as well got to watch and hear Horne play the trumpet with two different performances of his that were played.
One being Horne playing at Louis Armstrong’s House Museum in Queens, New York. The performance was a celebration of the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong.
Horne informed the audience on his connection to Louis Armstrong.
“My personal connection to Armstrong is like, you know, he’s the master of the trumpet, just period,” Horne said.
“The one main thing that I really tried to take away from Louis Armstrong is that, you know, no matter what I’m going through, can I present joy to people? Can I uplift the audience? That’s our job,” Horne said.
Horne also shared other parts of his journey, such as him attending college at Florida State, studying classical and jazz music.
As well as playing for Disney all American College Band in Anaheim, California. He figured out during his time at Disney, that he could have fun while playing music.
He also had shared some of his backstory.
Horne comes from a family of musicians and attended performing arts school his entire childhood. Horne even initially wanted to go to school for music theatre.
Horne went on to share how he had a job unrelated to music, working for an emergency dental service in Savannah, Georgia. Though he was doing well at the job and was encouraged to move up in position and become a manager, that was simply not what he wanted.
“After that, that was a shift for me that I was like, okay, I- whatever I do has to involve music business, teaching administrative whatever it is, I need to like to play music and be a part of the art, you know,” said Horne.