Philip Smith
Philip Smith retires
05/07/14 Filed in: News
Philip Smith, principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic, is retiring. He led that trumpet section for 36 years and produced a CD of excerpts that has become the de facto standard for orchestral trumpet playing. After the retirement of Bud Herseth, Phil Smith must be viewed as the leader of orchestral trumpet playing in America. He is notable enough that his departure was the subject of an article in The New Yorker:
Philip Smith, master trumpeter
The article and his comrades appropriately praise his career, but what I find telling is the one quote from Mr Smith, a master trumpeter who still, apparently, battles nerves:
A thirty-six-year career in the same orchestra means that expectations can remain high over a lifetime. “People keep showing up, and they want Mahler’s Fifth in 2013 to sound as good as it did in 1978,” he said. “And you’re going, ‘Shoot, man, I’m not sure if I can do that.’ So you have to watch the little voices and try to shove them out of the way. Try not to get focussed on mistakes. It’s like watching the Olympics—how many times you know these people are tops of their field, they get to the Olympics and the voices win. So it’s a constant battle to say, ‘Don’t let the voices win.’ Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing. When the voices start going, start singing.”