On this episode of The Front Row, famous trombonist, Jorgen van Rijen, principal trombonist of Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, takes time during his visit to Texas Tech to talk with us about his journey with the trombone.
Tell us about you and your journey with the trombone.
In Holland we have a big tradition of community wind bands and that’s normally the way you start to play an instrument, it’s a little bit different than here—here is mostly in school. We don’t have learning instruments in school, but you join a local wind band and you get your lessons. My family was very involved in it, my father was the chairman of the wind band, so I for sure was going to play something.
At some point my father showed me all the different instruments. I was about four years old, and since that moment I wanted to play trombone. I don’t know exactly why, because I was so young I can’t remember. But my parents thought, “that will change at some point he will choose a flute or a clarinet.” But I stuck with the trombone.
When I was about eight years old, my arms were not long enough, so I started on a valve trombone. It looks the same as a trombone, but instead of a slide, it has valves like a trumpet. When I was nine years old—the trombone has seven positions on the slide—I could reach the sixth, the seventh you need so much, so my teach said, “ok you can go to the slide trombone.”
Is it really inspiring to play among, what is considered the “best orchestra” in the world? What is it like to have that be your job?
That’s fantastic, like you said it’s very inspiring. In a great orchestra like that, there are many great musicians that inspire you. You know these pieces. But then you play them and somebody is playing a certain solo much more beautiful than you will ever think or have ever heard. That’s very inviting to also try and do something extra, something nice with it. I have a feeling that the more good musicians are around, the better every body starts to play because you get inspired by each other.
Listen to the full interview at the top of the article.
