Conrad Jones had less than two months to prepare for his concerto debut this weekend with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
Thatβs enough to bring on a case of jittery nerves, but Jones, who took over as TSOβs principal trumpet last season, was far too excited about Tsontakisβs βTrue Colorsβ to be nervous.
βWhat I liked about it and what is really cool about this concert is weβre doing βEgmontβ Overture and then βTrue Colorsβ and weβre finishing with Tchaikovskyβs Fifth. Itβs a very juicy, saturated program,β he said while sitting at the downtown restaurant Proper on a recent Monday afternoon. βAnd the trumpet concerto ... is a very sort of lighter, textural piece except that it has a ton of jazz influence in it. Itβs sort of lyrical in a different way than the Tchaikovsky.β
Aside from Decemberβs βMessiahβ MasterWorks concert at Catalina-Foothills High School, we have had few opportunities to see Jones in the spotlight. But we have certainly heard him play, his distinctive, clear tone singing through the melodic string passages and woodwinds.
When you see him on the Tucson Music Hall stage Friday night and Sunday afternoon, you might be struck by his appearance. When we caught up with him, the 25-year-old Long Island native looked like he had just stepped out of a GQ centerfold, dressed in distressed jeans, a striped button-up dress shirt untucked and dark suit coat with Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.
βPeople will crack jokes about my style. People make jokes about βMiami Viceβ or GQ comments,β he said with a nervous laugh, then admitted heβs into fashion.
Heβs also into food, jazz and hiking. Since moving here, heβs become a regular on Sabino Canyonβs Blackettβs Ridge trail.
But Jonesβ main focus is music, something that has occupied his attention since he first began playing the cello when he was 4. He grew up surrounded by music; his mom taught band and played clarinet and his father played trombone and was the music administrator for a school district.
βWhile I was playing cello, I really wanted to be in the band,β he said, so he switched instruments to trumpet.
His younger twin brothers, Doug and Gary, meanwhile took up trombone and tuba.
As a teen Jones attended Juilliardβs pre-college program then earned his bachelorβs degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio. He took post-graduate studies in orchestral music performance at Los Angelesβ Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he was when he took the audition for the TSO job.
βI moved to LA originally thinking that I was more interested in doing jazz than classical. But somehow, I donβt know if it was the combination of going to Colburn, which is so specialized in orchestral music, or just with what makes me tick, I kind of wound up really focusing on the orchestral side of it,β he said.
One of the selling points for him to come to Tucson was the chance to continue community outreach as part of the TSO Brass Quintet.
Jones has been an avid champion of outreach since he and his brothers and Japanese brothers Hayato and Hirofumi Tanaka formed the Kyodai Brass Quintet in 2009. The groupβs repertoire is rooted in classical, but they infuse it with jazz and movie scores, funk and Serbian music inspired by his brother.
βItβs a real bizarre, diverse collection,β he said, but the mix works when it comes to getting the attention of younger audiences.
Jones said his performance of Tsontakisβ βTrue Colorsβ is possibly only the second time the piece has been played since it was premiered in 2012 with the Albany Symphony Orchestra in New York.
