Music Makers: Interview With SRS Principal Trumpet Doug Morton

Originally from the Midwest, Doug Morton began playing trumpet at the age of 7. In his teens he attended the Interlochen Arts Academy, played with the World Youth Symphony, Michigan Youth Orchestra and was soloist with the Dun Scotus Bach Festivals. He received his bachelorâs degree in trumpet with honors from the New England Conservatory, studying with Armando Ghitala, Gunther Schuller and Daniel Pinkham. He founded and directed the Scholarship Brass Quintet, and was principal in many of Schuller's ensembles and Boston area groups. Since moving to the Bay Area, Doug has performed with the Sacramento, Berkeley, Monterey and California symphonies, among others, including being featured with the Santa Rosa, Monterey, Bay Area Concerto and Concord Pavilion orchestras as soloist. Pursuing his interest in music of all kinds, Doug has performed with such diverse groups as the Jazz Composerâs Orchestra, CARMA, Mental Floss, The Grateful Dudes, Clubfoot Orchestra, SF Mime Troupe, Beach Blanket Babylon, and the Bohemian Club Jinks Band. Doug also composes and arranges. His current favorite effort is working with CJQ, a cross-over jazz combo.

Doug has been principal trumpet in the Santa Rosa Symphony since 1992 and is a member of the SRS board of directors serving on the Strategic Planning Committee. He also participates in the Symphony's in-school performances and coaches brass and woodwinds for our Education Department.

How did you start playing music?
I must have been about five when I developed a crush on the girl next door. Her family had a piano, and since I went over to her house a lot, I discovered the instrument and how wonderful it was that you could make thunder on the low keys and rain sounds on the high keys. So the rest of my life has been figuring out the stuff in the middle. Music was my parents' avocation; my mother played trombone and my father played trumpet. Sometimes heâd play for her at the dinner table. Because my father's musical career was interrupted by World War II, I think I inherited a lot of his suppressed desire to play. I love the thing he loved÷classical music and big band jazz. From the time I started with the trumpet in fifth grade it was obvious that it was the instrument I was going to play, although I still play and teach piano and music theory.

What are your aspirations?
I aspire to be a creative musician. With classical music, you basically follow the instructions, but in jazz, the instructions are minimal and you have to make up your own music. To come up with quality music in real time in front of people is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do.

I didn't realize I could write and arrange until I came out to San Francisco. I got involved immediately with a group of musicians who played free music, free jazz; it was a very inviting atmosphere for anything I wanted to bring in. They were willing to experiment, and I didn't feel judged. This was very healthy for my creativityönot as severe and rigid as my experience with modern music within the classical arena. I love classical because it was my origin, my training. But my preference tends toward the energy of life that I feel with jazz. Santa Rosa is perfect because I have the opportunity to do the right amount of both.

Tell me about the eponymous group, the "Mortonetta Players."
Polly Holbrook, who was concertmistress of the orchestra before Joe Edelberg took over, started the Sinfonetta about 12-14 years ago, and she asked me to join. I love chamber music of all sorts; it's so challenging and so interesting. It was hard to find music for a 12-piece mixed ensemble like that, so I volunteered to arrange and found myself doing almost all the arrangements. When Polly retired, I inherited the project. How Sinfonetta turned into "Mortonetta" was, I think, [former operations director] Keith Herrett's sense of humor· but it is technically the Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players.

Our schedule has a senior outreach orientation, with performances at assisted living and retirement homes. The current program, titled "Uncommon Diversity," features folk music from Greece, Turkey, Israel, Romania Bulgaria and Argentina÷amazing music, with unusual meters like 13/8 or 9/8 and odd key signatures. The melodies have such strange harmonies, itâs surprising to think that people can dance to and even sing this music. My friend Sheldon Brown, who plays woodwinds in the ensemble, is an ethnic music specialist, and is helping me put the repertoire together. The other two members are bassist Randy Keith and percussionist Allen Biggs, both principals with the Symphony.

How do you like working with SRS?
The past 10 years with Jeff [Kahane] have been very rewarding, and, from an artistic standpoint, very challenging. He demands complete devotion to the music from everybody at all times. Yet, he has a great sense of humor and knows how to let the pressure off. He requires a tremendous focus, which is what chamber music does, what jazz does. It was thoroughly satisfying to me.

Jeff has a munificent spirit; things grow and expand around him. He built and refined the orchestra by hiring the best possible people and he challenged the heck out of us. The orchestra has got to the place where we can walk in and do a credible job in the first rehearsal·which is impressive. There is cohesion and a ãfamily feelä to this orchestra. Over the years, we provided Jeff a friendly musical laboratory, and he brought the orchestra to a very high level of excellence. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

What are some of your most memorable moments?
My most memorable times were the opportunities to play jazz with Jeff. But I also recall many moments when I had to concentrate my whole being on the task at hand, and that memory is indelible. Jeff has a tremendous sense of drama, as do all good conductors. Trumpets are often the signal notes of the climax of a piece and we must ring out over 80 or 90 musicians playing at the top of their volume. This can occasionally be harrowing, but is often ecstatic. For example, The Rite of Spring, which weâre playing in the May concert, is the kind of thing trumpet players live for.

How are you feeling about the music director search?
The first two candidates were remarkable. Joana Carneiro and Christoph Campestrini are spectacularly talented and the orchestra played well under them, in different ways. If the others are even close, itâs going to be a tough choice among equally great people. Iâm hoping that one will stand out and be the obvious pick, but Iâm afraid itâs not going to be that easy. This orchestra has ascended to a level where it can draw people of such caliber, and this is something to be proud of. During this season, every concert will be an event. Iâm looking forward to it.

You're on the Strategic Planning Committee of the SRS board. Do you have a vision for the Symphony's future?
The Green Music Center will be the beginning of an epoch. When we're in the new hall, it will be an eye- and ear-opener for everyone. With the level of performance the SRS has achieved, and the sound quality so improved, it will be a quantum shift in experience for both the audience and players. The facility is designed for an orchestra: world class acoustics, ample room on stage and backstage, the classrooms, the recital hall and practice rooms, plus the close association with Sonoma State÷Iâm hoping all this combined will support a flowering and a greater integration of the orchestra with the community and its educational components.

A core of really good players and a permanent facility will make a stable professional environment in our area. It's hard to maintain consistent quality with an orchestra of freelancers who spend so much time with the "freeway philharmonic" going from Marin to Napa to Sacramento to Fresno. I would like to see a viable opera, a viable ballet here, and more cooperation with regard to scheduling by the various symphony organizations. My vision is that there will be enough work so that musicians could make more of a home here.

Final thoughts?
The conductor initiates and shapes the music, the orchestra embodies and enacts it, the audience reacts and we pick up energy from them. People agree to come together in this way to create a collective experience, a collective human drama. Itâs kind of a miracle that all these folks put their hearts into something that doesnât pay off big in material ways. Itâs a group enterprise that results in something transcendent, the sense of being carried away.