Five years ago I was lucky enough to be a part of a very special musical ensemble, the Southeast Trumpet Connection. This group was made up of some of my closest friends whose goal was to put on spectacular performances of amazing arrangements. We played some of the classical pieces by Eric Ewazen, as well as many of the arrangements by James Olcott at Triplo Press. However, we settled into our groove when we started getting custom arrangements by one of our members, Mason Brown. Mason's arrangements were perfect for us because who wrote them to our strengths.
What started out as some friends goofing around in the Instrument Rehearsal Room turned into something much, much more. We performed as much as possible, from Lee University events such as Lee Day and Phi Mu Alpha's American Composer Conceet to Region's Free Day of Music at the Schermerhorn in Nashville. However the most memorable day as a group was the day we auditioned for America's Got Talent. From leaving Cleveland at 3:00am to get into the line when it opened to the promotional footage we were apart of thanks to our loud and flashy drummer, Kenyn Brown, catching the eye of the producers in the holding room, this was a day we will never forget. That day I learned exactly how much we could accomplish when we put our minds to it, in this case we accomplished our goal of getting on TV if only for 10 seconds.
Today's video is the final run through of our audition song, an arrangement of "Any Way You Want It" arranged by Mason Brown. Please excuse the prolonged silence at the beginning and the extremely fast tempo, we wanted to make sure we could setup and play the entire piece in the 90 seconds we were allowed for our audition.
Enjoy
Gabe Lajas
What started out as some friends goofing around in the Instrument Rehearsal Room turned into something much, much more. We performed as much as possible, from Lee University events such as Lee Day and Phi Mu Alpha's American Composer Conceet to Region's Free Day of Music at the Schermerhorn in Nashville. However the most memorable day as a group was the day we auditioned for America's Got Talent. From leaving Cleveland at 3:00am to get into the line when it opened to the promotional footage we were apart of thanks to our loud and flashy drummer, Kenyn Brown, catching the eye of the producers in the holding room, this was a day we will never forget. That day I learned exactly how much we could accomplish when we put our minds to it, in this case we accomplished our goal of getting on TV if only for 10 seconds.
Today's video is the final run through of our audition song, an arrangement of "Any Way You Want It" arranged by Mason Brown. Please excuse the prolonged silence at the beginning and the extremely fast tempo, we wanted to make sure we could setup and play the entire piece in the 90 seconds we were allowed for our audition.
Enjoy
Gabe Lajas