When I was approached to write a fanfare for the opening of DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York I trolled my memory for all the fanfares I had played in my life. I am a trombone player so I have played many, and I remember playing an arrangement in high school of the famous ‘trumpet voluntary.’ I also remember my amazement that ‘trumpet voluntary’ was not in fact supposed to have any trumpets in it, but was in reality an organ piece! For me, an early lesson in irony. In honor of that moment of disillusionment I wrote my piece ‘involuntary.’ And I wish the DiMenna Center well in its mission to make classical music easier to create, to rehearse, to perform and to record.
