This document accompanies new recordings of four recent sonatas for trumpet and piano. The project’s objective is to promote these works, while providing a comprehensive resource for potential performers. The four sonatas were selected based on their appeal to modern audiences. Composers Brendan Collins, Luis Engelke, William Rowson, and Christoph Nils Thompson each represents a different country, and they offer significant contributions to the trumpet repertoire. Each sonata expertly features the trumpet by highlighting its lyricism, virtuosity, and ability to cross genres.

The accompanying document draws upon interviews with the four composers, which reveal insights into the compositional process and provide details that performers will find useful. This document also offers in-depth musical descriptions, allowing performers to enhance their understanding of each sonata. The principal component of the document is the performer’s guide: Advice is presented directly to the trumpet player that has been garnered from the composers’ interviews, study of the music, and the author’s thoughts on preparing the music. To help other young musicians better comprehend the recording process, the author’s own experience is detailed. Ultimately, this document provides a window into the lifespan of the four sonatas; from their initial composition through the various stages of studying and rehearsing, culminating with the experience of recording these works for the first time.

Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953) was a leading composer during the Silver Age of Viennese operetta. His final work, Arizona Lady (1954), premiered posthumously, on Bavarian Radio, January 1, 1954. The stage premiere followed on February 14, 1954, at the Stadttheater in Bern, Switzerland. It is his only operetta that is set entirely in the United States, in Tucson, Arizona. Arizona Opera commissioned and produced a new adaptation of Arizona Lady, which was performed in October 2015, in both Tucson, Arizona, and Phoenix, Arizona. The libretto was heavily revised, as well as translated, primarily into English with some sections in Spanish and German.

Through comparison of the original and adaptation, this study examines the artistic decisions regarding which materials, both musical and dramatic, were kept, removed, or added, as well as the rationale behind those decisions. The changes reflect differences between an Arizonan audience in 2015 and the European audience of the early 1950s. These differences include ideas of geographical identity from a native versus a foreign perspective; tolerance for nationalistic or racial stereotypes; cultural norms for gender and multiculturalism; and cultural or political agendas. Comparisons are made using the published piano/vocal score for the original version, the unpublished piano/vocal score for the adaptation, archival performance video of the Arizona Opera performance, and the compact disc recording of the 1954 radio broadcast premiere.