For the next post in this series, we are heading back over to the USA. It has been a real pleasure to interview Amy Schumaker Bliss this week and read all about her passion for music, especially her immense contributions towards youth education. Actually, reading this interview has massively inspired me to try and do more!
Before reading her interview, you MUST listen to her playing! 🎵 Here is a recording of her playing Couleurs en Mouvements: 1. Jaune Cuivré (Copper Yellow).)
I hope you enjoy reading her interview!
Do you have a favourite composer or piece of classical or brass music?
My favorite composer for classical music in general is Gustav Holst right now. This changes all the time, so in another month or so, I’m sure it’ll be different. In the past year, I have played The Planets with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Akron Symphony Orchestra, and soon our local Westervile Symphony. Being pulled in to play the same orchestral pieces with several different orchestras means that I‘m able to notice the little nuances that a tempo changes or staging difference makes to the balance of the sound and the performance in general. I can geek out about stuff like that.
Additionally, I’m reading Michael Short’s biography of him right now as well. I found it in my favorite hole-in-the-wall used bookstore in Philadelphia last summer and have been reading it ever since. My favorite brass composers are Jan Bach and Lucy Pankhurst. I’ve collaborated with Lucy for Luminaries and the upcoming Longest Days and Ghosts of Industry. I’m sure we’ll have lots more collaborations in the future, or at least, I hope! I just love her work. All of her pieces sound different but still have this spark of creativity, attention to the minutest detail, and storytelling that makes up a Lucy Pankhurst piece.
I played Jan Bach’s Concert Variations in my master’s recital at the RNCM and then later wrote my doctoral paper on his euphonium concerto. Analyzing his work theoretically makes my brain hurt because he’s got so much going on in there. It’s so dense. I learn so much just from a few measures. He meanders through the circle of fifths in the last movement of his euphonium concerto in 12 bars! The guy was also fearless in what he would take on. He once wrote a Bach-style fugue on the theme from “We’re in the Money” for the Brass Chamber Music Workshop’s composition competition purely because he wanted to let the panel know that he wanted that prize money! Playing his work feels physically intense as well. I finish playing his fugue from Concert Variations and it feels like a workout. I had the privilege of talking with him a good amount while writing my doctoral paper and he talked to me all about his compositional process and even had charts of his works, mapped out and ready to go. I wish he had written more for the euphonium before he left us a few years ago.
Have you got any funny stories or unique experiences that you would like to share about any musical projects you have ever been involved in?
I recorded an album (Coleurs en Mouvements) in late 2018 and I tried to time its release for around the time that we’d be having our second child. The idea was to have some professional projects lined up to cover for the gap in my CV for when I was out with the baby. I timed that a bit too precisely. I was in labour in the hospital and was trying to distract myself by messing around on my phone. I checked my email to see that my album copies were now available for pickup and that the album was now available online. I emailed then back to ask if I could have a few additional days before pickup. They responded that they don’t reserve CDs for more than two days. I responded with a selfie of me in the hospital bed and I told them I’d be having a baby in a few hours. They let me know they’d hold the CD’s for as long as I needed. lol
What 3 songs do you love the most and why?
This question is hard! My favorite brass band piece is Resurgam. My students in the Rowan University Brass Band joked that I could find a quote or reference to it in a piece just about every semester. My favorite recording of it is the oddly specific Live in Bridgewater Hall recording that Foden’s played in 2002. I’ve heard that Lee Harrelson really likes that album as well. It was just a live recording of a show, but it happens to be a REALLY good show! I love the song Kaleidoscope by A Great Big World, or really anything by them. I like Kaleidoscope especially because it fits my older son so well. He’s highly synesthetic and the lyrics work so well:
My life was black and white and I believed it
My eyes looked at the world and couldn’t see it
You’re like the thing that makes the universe explode
Into the colors of a world I’ve never known
You keep turning, my life around
Violets and purples, diamonds and circles, you’re my kaleidoscope
I love every minute you’ve got me in it, you’re my kaleidoscope
I couldn’t think of a third and so I asked my husband. He said that I should say anything by Green Day. I am a millennial after all!
Tell us about some of your achievements as a euphonium player and musician.
This is tough. I find it hard to talk about my own achievements. I always feel awkward when I’m doing a masterclass and have to go over my own story because my impostor syndrome starts creeping in. I may have to listen to some Green Day while I think… I’m most proud of my children’s book, Amy’s Brass Band. I get emails and social media messages from people all over the world with pictures or videos of little kids playing a brass instrument because they read the book or learning how to conduct through that book. I really want to make a difference in the world and impact future generations, and I think that my children’s book may end up making the biggest positive difference in the world. Shameless plug: It’s available worldwide through Amazon.
I’m proud of my educational impact. I have online students all over the world and a solid in-person studio of local students. Since I left teaching euphonium at Rowan University in 2020, I’ve done about 20 masterclasses on four continents now (thank goodness for Zoom!). I’m busy in my educational portion of my career: I’m running my own youth brass band (we’re going to NABBA this year!), guest lecturing for brass methods courses, working with younger composers to try to get them into the genre of brass band and writing for our instrument, putting together online music theory classes for kids, writing grants to provide free workshops for area kids, doing presentations at educational conferences to expand knowledge of synesthesia, etc.
So, yes, my students are getting into All-State band and playing in lots of honors bands (and one in a military band) but I’m trying to look beyond that to achieve a broader educational goal. As a performer, I play regularly in Dublin Silver Brass Band and Athena Brass Band. I get to float around with many ensembles as soloist or temporary orchestra member, which is fun.
I particularly love getting to work with brass bands as a clinician and it’s something I’d like to do more of. I think being a euphonium player is unique because I frequently get to travel to fun locations because ensembles and orchestras realize that they don’t really need a euphonium player until they NEED and a euphonium player.
I volunteer my time in a number of ways to try to keep expanding the role of euphonium in the world and help others. I am doing a cultural exchange with two Ugandan youth brass bands with my own youth brass band this year (Mbale Hills Youth Brass Band and Brass for Children). I’m running the euphonium competitions for IWBC and serving on their euphonium composition competition panel.
I’ve also recently adjudicated for MWRTEC, SERTEC, ITEC, and the Falcone competition. I’ve raised grant money to provide educational opportunities and instruments free of charge to my youth brass band kids. I’ve also found grant money to fund commissions from a local composer for my kids and squeezed out enough money extra to fund brass band composition lessons for another local college student. My spirit animal is the duck, seeming to float around calmly on the surface while paddling furiously under the water.
What would you still like to achieve in your life, musical or not musical?
I have about 20 projects that I have in my mind that I’d like to get done, but on the scale of a lifetime as you’re asking, that changes my perspective. My goal is to just be a good person. To make people feel loved, be a good wife, mom, and musician… to leave the world a kinder and more musical place. I’m sure along the way, many of those projects that I think up will get done. Some won't, and that’s okay.
How did you first get involved in music, and what was your early inspiration?
My dad and uncles always played trumpet growing up. They all played trumpet because my grandpa played trumpet at Ohio State University before the agricultural program was shut down to send the men back to the farms in World War II. When it came time to choose an instrument, I played trumpet because I was proud of that legacy. Most of my cousins did the same. I switched to euphonium in the seventh grade. Growing up, at family events, we had four trumpets, two horns, a trombone, and euphonium. We never did have a tuba, so apparently my cousin had to go and marry a tuba player. lol
Do you have a website, business, or social media page you would like to promote? Please tell us all about it.
Website: https://www.amybliss.net
Instagram: @AmySchumakerBliss
Facebook: Amy Schumaker Bliss
Euphonium Podcast: https://www.newworldbrass.com
Couleurs en Mouvements on iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/couleurs-en-mouvements-moving-colors/1482371686
Do you agree there are challenges facing female musicians today? If so, what do you think are the biggest changes that need to be made to improve this?
When I was a student at the Royal Northern College of Music, for whatever reason, I started getting emails from girl euphonium players from all over the world. It was perplexing. This was when most social media was really pretty new. My explanation is that for a time, my website must have been what popped up when searching for a woman euphonium player on Google. Those few months when the algorithm chose me for whatever reason was eye-opening. Girls were mostly looking for another girl who played their instrument. They wanted encouragement. Several were being told factually inaccurate information like that they couldn’t handle marching with a baritone or euphonium because they’re too weak. The most shocking email came from a young woman whose band director had told her that he suspected she would become sterile from the effort required to play a low brass instrument. She was understandable concerned about her future ability to have children. I told her that the human species would be screwed if the amount of effort it took to play a low brass instrument was all it took to make a woman sterile. I have two kids and can tell you that playing euphonium is not a dependable form of birth control.
Really, though, here we are 16 years after I graduated from the RNCM and I found a mother on Reddit asking if her five-foot-tall daughter would be able to handle playing the euphonium. I responded and got their address. I ordered 50 of my Besson posters so that I’d have one to send to this girl. I made sure she knew that I am five feet tall as well. Studies show that little kids know the predominant gender of occupations by kindergarten if not preschool. We need to catch kids early to give them positive experiences before the world tells them they can’t achieve something.
What piece of advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time?
Just keep going… and eat as much gluten as you can before you get celiac disease!
What piece of advice would you give to young brass players (or any instrumentalists) to help them find success?
Be creative and stand out. The oldest generation that is educating us had the reasonable expectation of a job. We don’t. They could get a full-time tenure track job with a master’s degree while people now who have doctorates are fighting for adjunct positions. Someone out there will always play as well or better than you. In this super competitive job market, you have to embrace what sets you apart. Are you super good at social media and technology like Natalie Colegrove? (check out her interview). Can you develop a new product like Nikki Abissi? Can you write or arrange music like Gail Robertson? Can you bring low brass history alive like Joanna Ross Hersey? Embrace your unique talents and use them to stand out.
A big THANK YOU to Amy for being interviewed in this blog series! Wow, such amazing stories and insights!
I hope you enjoyed reading the interview, please share it, like and subscribe and look out for the next one very soon!
To return to the overview page to see who is next to be featured, just CLICK HERE!
Mark Glover
13/11/24
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