Will Leathers Trumpet Interview
Welcome to the show notes for Episode #137 of The Other Side of the Bell – A Trumpet Podcast. This episode features trumpeter Will Leathers. Listen to or download the episode below:
About Will Leathers
Will Leathers earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School in 2022 and 2023 and was the first undergraduate classical trumpeter to receive the prestigious Kovner Fellowship.
In 2022, while still completing his studies, Will secured the highly sought-after position of Principal Trumpet for both the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera, an extraordinary accomplishment for a musician at his stage of career.
He continued to break barriers, being recognized by CBC Music as one of Canada’s “30 Hot Classical Musicians Under 30,” solidifying his place as one of his generation’s most promising classical musicians.
He has performed with world-renowned ensembles, including New York Philharmonic Brass, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (Guest Principal Trumpet), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Guest Principal Trumpet), and Philadelphia Orchestra (Guest Associate Principal Trumpet).
He also performs as a concerto soloist, both on piano and trumpet.
Will’s artistry has also led him to collaborations with elite chamber ensembles, including The National Brass Ensemble, where he was invited to perform and record with some of the finest brass musicians from major American orchestras, American Brass Quintet, Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival Orchestra. He has been a part of a number of recordings such as “Deified”, an album by the National Brass Ensemble, and Soundtrack for the film Rustin Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground.
Will released his debut album, “Blue Sky Purple Clouds,” in 2025, a collaboration with Michael Gaspari. It is now available on all major streaming services.
Will Leathers episode links
Website: willleathers.com
Instagram: @leathersboy
Bandcamp: willleathers.bandcamp.com
Buy the album: Blue Sky, Purple Clouds
Podcast Credits
- “A Room with a View“ – composed and performed by Howie Shear
- Audio Engineer – Ted Cragg
- Selected Artist Photographs – Sophia Szokolay
- Podcast Host – John Snell
Transcript
Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. It may contain spelling and other errors. If you would like to assist us in editing or translating this transcript, please let us know at info@bobreeves.com.
[00:00:00]
JOHN SNELL: Hello and welcome to the Other side of the Bell, a podcast dedicated to everything trumpet brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. We’ll help you take your trumpet plane to the next level. I’m John Snell, and I’ll be your host for this episode. Joining me today is trumpeter Will Leathers. We’ll get to Will’s interview here in a moment after a word from our sponsor and some trumpet news.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass, who share your passion for creating extraordinary music. You know that feeling when your instrument just clicks and the music flows effortlessly. That’s what Bob Reeves Brass has been helping customers do since 1968. We’ve helped brass musicians like you achieve their dreams by ensuring their equipment is always in perfect harmony.
We know you want to immerse [00:01:00] yourself in the art of music making. And we’re here to remove any barriers between you and your creative vision. Bob Reeves Brass is truly your one stop shop for everything you need to fuel your passion and create music that touches hearts and souls. So go ahead, let us help you elevate your sound to new heights.
Don’t wait another moment to elevate your musical journey with Bob Reeves Brass. Connect with us@bobreeves.com. Shoot us an email at info@bobreeves.com and keep up with the latest news on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter at bob Reeves Brass. Embrace your passion for music and let Bob Reeves Brass be your partner in creating the extraordinary.
Well, I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer or if you’re listening down in the Southern hemisphere, uh, a wonderful winter. I think we are all done with our travels. It’s been a really whirlwind of a few months [00:02:00] between, uh, ITG and IWBC and Adam Fest. Uh, and then I went to Europe, uh, had a great time at the Biba Academy, the in southern Sweden.
So wonderful event there. If you’re not familiar with it. Every summer they do a brass. It’s for all brass, uh, trumpet, trombone, uh, horn and tuba world class faculty flies in from all over the world and in a beautiful part of the world, Southern Sweden in, in the great. It’s town of Carls Krona. So I spent a few days there with my good friend Lasa Lindgren of Vin Mutes.
I also got to visit the factory at Vin Mutes and see how they, uh, spin the mutes there. Absolutely wonderful experience. And then I did some nont trumpet things. I actually had a vacation in, uh, Denmark, and then flew over to England. Saw Formula One race if you have any racing fans out there. Got to go to Silverstone and, uh, ended up with a little trumpet event.
Got to meet up with Kate Moore from the BBC concert Orchestra. Had a, uh, fish and chips and a proper pint with her. And you can look forward to her [00:03:00] interview in a, in a future episode. Absolute fabulous player in human being and great way to cap off my trip. Uh, then came back, uh, back to reality, so to speak.
And now we are just cranking out here at the shop, catching up on orders, catching up on emails, and getting ready for the second half of the year. Uh, that does mean a lot of exciting things. Looks like we’re gonna be going to Japan again later this year. We’ll have the details for that. As soon as we have them.
A lot of great things coming into the shop mouthpiece wise. So if you are in need of a consultation or a valve alignment, we are full steam ahead. Uh, we have everyone at the shop now. We’re all done with our holidays. Uh, lots of guard bags in stock, lots of great trumpets in stock. I think I have a Chuck Finley Van Lar.
I have a doc, Dustino Shires Dustino in the shop right now that, you know, plays its socks off. And, uh, lots of exciting things coming up. And of course, mutes, vin mutes and yon mutes and all the fun things that we have. So if you need [00:04:00] anything, head over to bob reeves.com, as I said in the ad read. And, uh, if you are in and around Japan later this year, keep your eyes and ears out because we would love to meet up with you.
Well, that’s all the news. I’ll keep it short today because I wanna get right to my interview. A fabulous guest today. And that is of course, will Leathers.
Will Leathers is a rising star in the trumpet world. He earned earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Julliard, where he was the first undergraduate classical trumpeter to receive the prestigious Covner fellowship, while still a student. He landed principal trumpet positions with both the Nashville Symphony and the Santa Fe Opera.
A rare achievement for someone so early in their career. He’s performed with top ensembles like the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, and the New York Phil Harmonic Brass Will is also an accomplished soloist on both trumpet and piano. Most [00:05:00] recently, he released his debut album, blue Sky Purple Clouds, which highlights his artistry on both instruments and blends classical tradition with his own creative voice.
And now here’s my interview with Will Leathers.
All right. I am so honored to have with me today and fresh off a, a amazing performance at the International Trumpet Guild earlier this summer. Joining me today is Will Leathers. Will thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, John. And I’m excited to talk about trumpet with you. And let’s start right from the beginning, you know, how did the trumpet find you or did you seek out the trumpet?
Funny
WILL LEATHERS: enough,
JOHN SNELL: trumpet
WILL LEATHERS: wasn’t actually my first instrument. My first instrument was the, uh, the piano. Mm-hmm. So my, my musical journey really began with that and how that began, and I, I, I will get back to the trumpet, I promise, is that basically when I was about three, four years old, I’d be watching this cartoon all the time called Oswald, which is about this big blue octopus that had a little dog named Weenie [00:06:00] and played the piano only with two of those eight arms, I guess.
And so. I watch this cartoon all the time and I was really into the piano playing that the octopus was doing. So I start, started, you know, begging my mom to get some piano lessons so I could learn how to do what that octopus is doing. And for a little bit, my mom thought it was one of those phases just ’cause as, as a kid I was kind of interested in everything for a little burst of time, but the piano thing was something that just wasn’t really going away.
So after about five, six months of asking if I can start to learn how to play the piano with somebody, she got me some piano lessons. And so that’s where the musical journey kind of began. And actually fun fact about my, you know, initial exposure to music, especially not, especially considering classical music.
Something that my mom actually used to do when she was pregnant with me was actually put on a classical music radio station and put the headphones on her belly so that I could listen to that. I also like to give that action a little bit of credit for, you know, why [00:07:00] I have such a, such a passion for classical music like we all do.
So going from there, how I got to the, the trumpet, I kinda always wanted to play the trumpet as well growing up because my, my dad is a, is now retired professional tro tro player. Mm-hmm. Um, commercial jazz guy in the, the Toronto area. And so I would pretty much hear him practice pretty much every day. He is, you know, practices like crazy just like I do now.
And, you know, hearing him play all the time, I wanted to be able to do that. He did wanna wait to, to start teaching me though because he wanted me to have the four front adult teeth so that, you know, when he teaches me how to set an omnisure, it doesn’t have to change too much when, you know, you lose the baby teeth and you grow the adult teeth and have to learn all over again.
So I got started when I was six, about to turn seven. My dad was my first teacher. He taught me basically, you know, anything and everything to do with trumpet, you know, even though he’s a, a commercial jazz guy. [00:08:00] What I would hear in practicing, you know, 70 to 80% of the time. At home would be, you know, fundamentals in classical music, hear a lot of the hide and in humel, trumpet, concertos, trumpeters, lullaby, artian, you know, some orchestral excerpts here and there.
And then, you know, he would have no problem just like spending maybe an hour in the day on some earth wind and fire charts or whatever he’s playing on, on the gig that night. And then, and then just go read down the book. But most of his practice went into, you know, classical music and fundamentals. ’cause he always believed, and he taught me that, that classical music, no matter what genre you’re playing on the trumpet, classical music is the truth.
And so we would play every genre together and he would teach me how to play classical music, gospel, a little bit of jazz, a little bit of commercial, anything like that. And then how I got a little bit more focused on classical trumpet. So my, my elementary school band teacher, Chris Ola, he used to be the principal trumpet of the Guelph Symphony Guelph that’s in Guelph, Ontario, which is about two [00:09:00] hours west of Toronto.
Mm-hmm. And so. He actually took me to a dress rehearsal for, I believe it was the Messiah, when I was 11 years old, and he had me sit right there next to him in the orchestra. So I would get kind of his, his POV of what his, you know, professional performing life was like. And I developed a, a pretty deep passion just from that experience.
JOHN SNELL: We were talking about seven, eight years old still. Well,
WILL LEATHERS: now, now I’m 11 years old at this point. 11. Okay. Yeah. So I, I started so still really
JOHN SNELL: young, but
WILL LEATHERS: yeah. And so after that rehearsal, I went and told my mom that I wanted to, you know, get into some orchestral playing amazing. There was just something about it that, that, you know, just gave me a lot of fulfillment, just watching Chris do it.
And I was like, I want learn how to do that myself. So she got me to audition for some youth orchestras in the area, the Halton Mississauga Youth Orchestra, and the Toronto Sym Youth Orchestra. So I auditioned and gotten to those. At the time, I think I, I [00:10:00] had become the youngest. Brass player in the Toronto Syn youth orchestra at 12 years old.
I think there fairly recently, there’s been a horn player that broke my, broke my record. I could be wrong. Probably about a few months younger than me. ’cause I believe the, the minimum age at the time was 12 and I think they got rid of the minimum age.
JOHN SNELL: It’s amazing that, uh, you know, there’s so, so much promising young musicians coming up to the extent to get rid of the minimum age.
So, but I do wanna back up a second. ’cause you did, you mentioned there was something about classical music that really spoke to you. Now looking back, what do you think it was, what do you think it was about the, was it something specific about the music or the sounds or the compositional qualities? Well, one thing that,
WILL LEATHERS: that definitely drew me towards classical music, especially when I was really young, whenever there’d be anything like a, like a commercial with Italian opera music or, or watching Oswald and just the piano music and that.
Sometimes if my, if my mom was around and I was, I was watching one of these TV [00:11:00] shows or commercials I described. You know how beautiful the music is, and I would use the word beautiful at such, such a young age. And for a while my, my mom thought that, you know, that this is kind of interesting how he’s using this kind of imagery to describe something that he’s hearing.
But then she eventually discovered that it was very literal what I was talking about, that I was actually seeing the music in color. And, um, she did a little bit of research and discovered that I have something called synta. Mm-hmm. And, and one of the types of synesthesias I have is being able to see sound and color, and there are lots of different types of synesthesia.
Another one I have is being able to see letters and numbers in color. But I think the, um, synesthetic experience for me has really, you know, drew me into classical music. The way I both hear and see the music is something that’s always really stuck with me and has kept me, you know, passionate about the whole thing.
JOHN SNELL: Interest. So something about classical music, it’s, you know, someone without synesthesia would listen to it and enjoy it, but for you [00:12:00] it’s in, would you describe it as more of an all immersive experience when you’re listening to it?
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah, I’d, I’d say so. Yeah. There’s always something about it and there’s, it’s always something that, even if the history of the piece or the story behind it is, is really interesting, everything always ends up coming back to the way it both sounds and looks to me, if that makes any sense.
Mm-hmm.
JOHN SNELL: Well, I can’t, yes and no. Having not experienced it myself, I can only, I can only imagine. I mean, so the, the synesthesia as it relates to your trumpet plane and your development in trumpet, can you talk about that? Do you think it made things any easier for you, or was it, I mean, easier for you? I mean, everyone’s gotta learn the trumpet, but you, was it easier for you to connect the dots in terms of what you’re hearing versus what’s physically going on?
WILL LEATHERS: I think it made it a little bit easier because. We play an instrument that is so close to, to the way the human voice works because, um, this is something, something Jim Thompson talks about [00:13:00] where, you know, the human voice is essentially human tissue vibrating along an air column as is. That’s what the, the trumpet is.
You have to literally vibrate, you know, you got the four feet of plumbing comes out. So being able to vocalize a little bit from what I want to hear to actually being able to produce it, it gets a little, little bit easier if I’m able to kind of visualize in my own head what I wanna see in here, come out of the trumpet.
Now the tricky part is I also have perfect pitch. And so when you start on a b flat trumpet, if that’s where your trumpet learning experience starts, which is most of us, either B flat trumpet or B flat cort, and then you go to learn seed trumpet, it can, it can be a little bit tricky depending on how you learned how to play B flat trumpet there.
There are some people where. Okay. So for me, because Pano was my first instrument, concert pitch instrument learning the B flat trumpet at first was a little bit tricky because I would see a note on the, on the page I see a G on the page. Okay, play a G on a B flat trumpet, [00:14:00] well that’s a concert F. So it took, it took me a minute to kind of figure out how to take in, in a certain input and get a, a different output and kind of get that to be intertwined mm-hmm.
With itself. Get those two things to be intertwined together in my head so I can get the results that I want. And then, so going to see Trump, it was even more confusing. ’cause after learning how to convert all this in my brain, now I essentially have to go back to maybe what should have been my default settings.
I don’t know if it should have been or not, but, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t. And so I, I kind of had to figure out my own way. Having this whole conversion method in my head of, okay, B I’m holding a B flat trumpet, I’m holding a C Trump, but these is what the notes are. This is, this is the, the key.
It’s in. So I guess learning how to essentially transpose from any, from whatever’s on the page to whatever instrument I’m playing has been the main challenge with both the combination of Perfect pitch and Anastasia. ’cause along with the perfect [00:15:00] pitch comes the, the colors that are assigned to those pitches in my, mm-hmm.
In my synta, you know, a, a good amount of people that have both perfect pitch and synta or, or one of the other have a similar kind of experience. Or depending on if someone’s first musical instrument ever was a B flat trumpet, then sometimes that’s how concert pitches will be registered in the brain as B flat pitches, uh oh.
That will be a g to, uh, a person that would’ve learned music for the first time on B flat trumpet, which kind of makes your training class hard in college, from what I hear. And so I guess learning the piano first was kind of a blessing for me. ’cause at at least I got to learn on a, a concert pitch instrument first.
If you go to the Julliard School, the ear train features there tend to be a little bit tougher on the people with perfect pitch, just to make sure you’re really hearing Okay. That is a dominant chord. You’re not just hearing EG sharp bd, so you’re not just hearing specific notes in the cord, [00:16:00] you’re hearing the actual sound of the cord.
So hearing the quality. Yeah. You know, that could be, yeah. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Did you have to tick a box when you went in that you had perfect pitch so they would know? Yeah,
WILL LEATHERS: exactly. Yeah. Terrific. Yeah. When you’re testing and when you’re doing the initial test, when you get there for what your training class you have to be in and, and which teacher you would be assigned to as well.
You know, they, they tend to put people with perfect pitch with certain professors, just so they know that, okay, this, this person’s gonna actually learn the sound of the chord. Sure.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, I’m good on them too. Not, not, don’t let you slack off and get away with anything just ’cause of something you’re already able to do.
Well, that’s fascinating. I want, I I really, and I mean, obviously I’ve talked to a lot of folks that are, you know, at the end of their career where you’re early on in your career. So I do wanna spend some time just to kind of dig into what you’re playing look like. You know, starting when you finally had your first adult teeth coming into getting into the youth orchestra at, at 11 or 12 years old.
Were you adamant about practicing every day? Were you putting in hours and hours or were you a kid and then [00:17:00] getting the horn? You know, like, my son plays trumpet and he does this half an hour a day kind of thing. What did, what did your plane look like at that age?
WILL LEATHERS: I just really enjoyed getting the horn on my face whenever I could.
And I, and I still do my problem ever since I started, was getting away from the horn. And I, and you know, I still have to mentally twist my own arm to, to get myself to take a day off. Mm-hmm. And so I’ve always practiced a lot. I don’t know if I’ve, I’ve ever been the most organized practicer. I just kind of practice whatever I feel like I need to get done.
I just like to keep it simple. Whatever I have coming up, whatever’s coming up first, I practice that first. Then whatever’s coming up after that, you know, so I just kind of have my mental priority list. I will rarely, you know, write out a, a practice log or anything like that unless I, I feel like I have too many things going on.
I need to at least write down, you know, what I need to get done and, and check it off the list. I don’t really put amounts of time for anything. I just kind of say to myself, whatever amount of time it takes, I make the [00:18:00] time to, you know, sort of practice for whatever I’m getting ready for. Mm-hmm. And so I’ve, I’ve kind of always practiced like that, you know, especially listening to my, my dad practicing growing up.
I, I, you know, I learned from that what it takes to work on fundamentals, work on getting better at the actual instrument and, and what it takes to maintain what you’ve achieved on the instrument as well. And also what it takes to. Prepare for actual performances. Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s the kind of practice, or I’ve been, you know, never really, you know, based off of time or anything like that.
It’s, once the, the job is done, it’s done.
JOHN SNELL: So you, you can play all day sometimes, like even when you’re a kid come home from school and time for bed will, and nope, I’m still playing. That sort of thing. I mean, were you that, that connected Pretty much, yeah.
WILL LEATHERS: And the thing that was nice about it was my parents would just kind of, kind of let me do it.
’cause my, my dad would practice at, at any hours of the day. Mm-hmm. And my parents are getting close to 40 years of marriage now. They just had their 37th year anniversary a few weeks ago. [00:19:00] So my mom being married to a trumpet player for a very long time, you know, she learns how to pretty much just sleep through the trumpet playing.
So now that her, her son’s playing trumpet, it’s just another trumpet player to deal with. And so, you know, practicing at, at any hours was, was pretty much permitted.
JOHN SNELL: I love it. I love it. And I, I mean, as your dad, as your primary teacher, would uh, you guys play duets together? Would you guys jam together?
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah, we’d, we do, we’d play a lot. We, we didn’t get to play as much as you think, you know, two people, especially if they’re related, living together, we get to mm-hmm. You know, play together just ’cause, you know, there’s like me in school and me having to do my visual practice sing and I was all doing all kinds of performance ’cause when I was a kid too, especially as a, as a concert pianist, and then my dad was always gigging and, and working and all that.
But we still found the time to, you know, practice together and play together. And, you know, he was teaching me very actively when I, when I was a kid. But outside of the actual lesson time, you know, it was, it was a little bit hard to, [00:20:00] to kind of find time to, to play together. But, but we did it and we, we, we performed here and there together.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. So, right. I, my dad’s a Trump player and although, uh, we, you, you and I are different ’cause I would never let my dad teach me. He, he tried with his whole heart, tried to teach me and I just, I couldn’t listen to him no matter what he said. But we would play duets together and, you know, I obviously cherish that time.
I mean, was there a point then he handed you off to then another private teacher? Or did he teach you up till when you went to Julliard?
WILL LEATHERS: So, when I started doing the youth orchestra thing, I actually started studying with my elementary school band teacher around the age of, of 12. And then he has connections with Jim Thompson.
So I got to, you know, get some lessons with him when I, when I started getting further into my teenage years. But, you know, up until I went to Julliard at age 17, you know, my, my dad was always around to, to give any, any suggestions on my playing. Mm-hmm. And so pretty much all, all of the fundamental concepts he ever taught me on the instrument, I, I still used to this [00:21:00] day.
Especially when it comes to, you know, he was, he was always big on the vocalizing bowels. Throughout the register of the horn, the level of the tongue in those vowels has the last say. He’s a big believer in that. I’m a big believer in that. So that’s just one of the, the many examples of, of things that he taught me when I was very young and kept reminding me about up until I went to Julliard, even though I had the, you know, the classical trumpet.
The orchestral trumpet lessons from Chris Ola and, and Jen Thompson. Chris,
JOHN SNELL: yeah. And Chris worked with you on similar stuff as well?
WILL LEATHERS: With Chris it was more so style and just kind of knowing what I should sound like in different contexts. With Chris, we didn’t really have to get into to fundamentals too much.
Mm-hmm. It was just, okay, we’re practicing, let’s say we’re practicing divorce act seven. I guess the main technical thing he had to talk to me about when playing classical trumpet, generally getting out of the habit of tongue stopping because learning all these different genres of music with my dad, [00:22:00] you know, I was just trying to, you know, play the way, the way he was playing and because he was a.
Commercial jazz player by trade. He has a certain way of playing. And so I, I did that going into classical music. And then, so Chris essentially started to teach me how to turn it off and turn it back on whenever I needed to. Mm-hmm. And what he actually did is back then I would go to his house a lot for lessons to explain how to turn off the, the tongue stop.
He took me over to his kitchen sink, started running the water, and he said, this is how you need to be articulating. And he just flicked his finger through the water, water streaming the sink. And he said, this is what you need to be doing, rather than, you know, doing this. And he would turn the sink on and off.
He said, that’s what you’re doing. You need to be, you know, flicking your finger through the water. And so, um, you know, conceptualizing that. And I, I still think about that and sometimes I, I use that example with students and, you know, just that example alone has really taught me how to, you know, compare a lot of technical and physical related things [00:23:00] with the trumpet to what other objects?
Like I don’t remember when I. I came up with this a while ago relating, I guess, general air support with using a microscope. So, because most people have, by the time you reach a certain age, most people have used a microscope before in science class. And so what’s really important with the microscope when you’re observing specimens is you need to be properly using your rough adjustment knob and your fine adjustment knob.
So I relate the rough adjustment knob to your abdominal muscles, your diaphragm, all of that that happens down here. It’s basically everything you know, below the column on lungs, all that. So the, the rough adjustment knob gets you in the ballpark, you know, diaphragm and abdominal muscle support that kind of gets you there.
You know, high C, you can’t really do much if, if this is relaxed, right? Mm-hmm. What really gets you in the ballpark when you’re viewing your specimen, the rough adjustment knob is moving the entire tray up and down. The fine adjustment knob, adjust the lens. And so I relate [00:24:00] that to everything that’s going on in your oral cavity.
Your. Your tongue and your asure and, and more specifically your, your apture, the way you’re dealing with that, with the seal of your lips. And so the rough adjustment knob and the fine adjustment knob need to be working together. They need to be intertwined in the job with viewing that specimen so you can really focus on what you’re looking at because you know something like, you probably remember when your science teacher told you to take a popsicle stick and stick it against the inside of your cheek and slap it on a, on a thing and look at it.
You know, those are very small. These are skin cells that we’re talking about. They’re clear and they’re hard to focus on. And so if those two things aren’t working together properly, you’re not really gonna be able to see anything very clearly. If you want everything to be clean and precise and be very efficient with the sound that you want, it’s never really gonna be the same ratio between.
You know, abdominal support and oral cavity support, tongue support or whatever you want to call all this after support as well. Yeah. So abdominal oral, those have to be working together. [00:25:00] Sometimes you might have a, a 70 30 ratio, sometimes you might have a 60 40. It depends, always depends on what the music calls for.
You know, coming up with i ideas like that, you know, just comes from that flicking the, the, the finger through the sink all comes.
JOHN SNELL: And that’s a, that’s a great analogy. ’cause yeah, I mean, you can’t have one without the other. And I’ve seen players that are good at one and not the other and vice versa. And then, then they wonder why they have issues and it’s like, well, yeah, you know, you have to be able to have this kind of fine control up here for whatever it is.
Like you said, the aperture, the compression, the tongue level, et cetera. But they’re not supporting. You really need both of those elements. I love that. I love that analogy. So I hope you’re right. Are you writing a book? I guess you need to get that eventually.
WILL LEATHERS: That’s, that’s a good idea. Maybe I should, once I come up with enough things, like I need more things to use conceptually other than microscopes, maybe the microscope can be a chapter and then I just come up with like, you know, chapter two, the kitchen sink.
Yeah. And then, you know, just keep going on love, I guess. We’ll see what else. I love what else I can come up with. I love [00:26:00]
JOHN SNELL: And I also wanted to mention, so I mean, getting back to kinda your free Julliard, where, I mean, you were also playing, you said concert piano the whole time as well, right? So as you’re playing in the youth orchestras, learning the trumpet, excelling in the trumpet, you’re also excelling at the, at the piano.
Was there a point where you were thinking you wanted to do one or the other? Or did you think you could, you know, have a career in both? Or what, what did that look like for you?
WILL LEATHERS: Well, for a little while I’ve generally considered the trumpet to be the instrument that feels like I can make that an, an extension of my voice.
You know, I still enjoy the playing the piano quite a bit. And I, I guess in terms of the level of my skills, the trumpet has become the instrument that makes me money most of the time. But I still enjoy playing the piano. Just recently back in April, I did a, a concert in Oakville, Ontario. That’s the town I went to school in, just outside of Toronto with the Oakville Symphony, with Lorenzo Guggenheim.
He is the music director. He actually let me do Mozart piano concert number 23 on the first half of that [00:27:00] concert. And on the second half he let me do the tomasi. So I, I got to, you know, put both skills in the same concert there. So those are things that I, that I like to do every, every once in a while just to, uh, make sure that I can still play the piano.
And actually my album that just came out, which I, I guess we’ll probably get into in a little bit. Yeah. Um, I actually, it’s, it’s mostly music for trumpet and piano and I actually recorded both the trumpet and piano parts.
JOHN SNELL: And that’s Blue sky Purple Clouds. That’s right. Yeah.
WILL LEATHERS: That’s the, uh, that’s the album.
JOHN SNELL: So it’s pulling a little page from Artur Sandoval’s book, right? Because he’s Oh,
WILL LEATHERS: yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: He famously will, and he’s one, he’s
WILL LEATHERS: one lucky guy too, and also very deserving. He’s got that Oscar Peterson extended piano in his home with the extra low keys. And so, yeah, maybe one of these days he’ll let me into his house and let me give it a spin.
JOHN SNELL: I, I, I, you know, I’ve, I’m sure he will, if, have, have you played with Arturo, haven’t you? Or? He was,
WILL LEATHERS: uh, he was in Nashville back [00:28:00] in, back in October. Mm-hmm. And I was just backstage there on the day he was there getting some music, and he was coming in for a sound check with his band. Him and Mike Tucker and all those guys, and mm-hmm.
And I saw him. I, I had, I was gonna go to his show that night. I had tickets. I, I, I said, Hey, Arturo, good to see you. I’m gonna be in the third row at your show tonight. And he was like, oh man, you wanna play? And I was like, okay. Yeah, sure. What are we, what are we doing? And he is like blues and C sharp and he is like, no, just kidding.
We’ll keep it in easier keys. So he had, he had me up on stage at that show. Mm-hmm. Uh, I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure if he was gonna remember or not, you know, to call me up. ’cause you know, sometimes, you know, travel schedules and whatnot, you never know Oh yeah. How those affect people. But he was, but yeah, he was nice enough to invite me up on stage and we played little, I think it was a b flat blue, something like that.
And he stops the whole band and goes, NA, moler five. And then, and then he’s like, why don’t you play some pictures? And then, and we fooled around. I played pictures in like four different keys in the, in within 30 seconds. And he did it. I [00:29:00] concert minor and, and yeah, we did a bunch of musical shenanigans up there.
JOHN SNELL: I was gonna say, it’s like, yeah, if you guys get together in his studio with a piano and a couple trumpets, uh, in both of your guys’ skills, I think that could be dangerous. We might end up with, with like a, a, a beam of light or something. Or are they saying Ghostbusters, you know, don’t cross the streams if we get, get you guys together that much skill and talent in one room on, uh, with Oscar Peterson, his piano, you know.
Oh
WILL LEATHERS: yeah, yeah. And of course we had to have a cigar together after the show. I mean, of course,
JOHN SNELL: of course. What fun. So yeah, I hope you can make that happen and I hope you guys live stream it. If you ever come out to, uh, Tarzana here. So you do the piano thing, you do the trumpet thing, and then that’s why I brought up the piano question.
’cause I know Arturo, like he loves the trumpet, but you know, I think deep down and he said, yeah, I don’t know if he’s joking on stage or something. He’s like, you know, I, you know, piano’s my in and he’ll sit down and he’ll play piano for 20 minutes. Uh, you know, I think he loves, loves just playing the piano.
So I was wondering, you know, how you felt between the two instruments and then [00:30:00] at, you know, 15, 16 years old. You know, starting to make career decisions, you know, if it was an easy choice for you or a clear choice, that sort of thing. But, so it sounds to me like trumpet is more of your voice, right?
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah, definitely for me, yeah.
That’s, mm-hmm. That’s just the way I, the way I regularly feel. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s nice to still have the, the piano skills so I can go and do something like, you know, take on both those instruments on my album.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk about the album here in a little bit. I want to get into your choice to go to Julliard.
Oh, yeah. Obviously, it’s a clear choice if you want to go into orchestral stuff, although it’s not the only choice. Certainly. So what did that look like? What did the audition process look like? What was your thought process in terms of schools that you were applying to, and what did the audition process look like for you?
WILL LEATHERS: The audition, you know, it was very, very short amount of time in the room. Like, you know, they, they have a lot of people to get through when they’re, they’re doing the live auditions, and so I don’t think my audition lasted more than, than 10 minutes and. You know, just the regular thing, you know, to [00:31:00] contrasting a two or, or what, what was it, two contrasting solo pieces to contrasting a two.
It’s just kind of stuff to have ready for the audition, you know? Mm-hmm. Because you have 10 minutes, you, you won’t necessarily be asked to play all of it, but I played with what I was asked to, to play a little bit of the, the tomasi. I think I did a little bit of, I don’t know, shaggy two and then few standard orchestral excerpts.
That was about it. The committee there was, was very neutral. I think that’s, that’s generally how they do things. I believe it was Chris Martin wasn’t available on that day, so I, I think the committee, it was Kevin and Lewis from the A BQ, if I remember correctly. And then, and then Ray Mason, Mark Gould, they were all there and they asked me for whatever they wanted to hear me play.
They take their notes and I say, thank you very much. That was pretty much the audition process and. So I, uh, eventually got the news that I, that I got in, and then it, it settled in that this would, uh, you know, even with the scholarship that I was offered, it would still cost a lot of money. Helped me get a [00:32:00] few interviews on TV and a, and a lot of very, you know, generous people donated to that campaign.
So I was able to go to my dream school. When I was at Juliet, I studied with both Chris Martin and Ray Mace. I studied with Chris Martin my first three years there. Mm-hmm. Three years in my undergrad. And then in my third year I was accepted into the accelerated Master’s program, which meant that I could do the six years of bachelor’s and master’s in five years instead of six.
And so I figured, well, now that I’m into a master’s program now I can probably see if I can get more. And now that my playing is a lot more developed when I started here, maybe I should start getting some more, uh, opinions on my playing whenever I can. So I started actually doing a, a split studios. I would do a lesson with Chris one week and then a lesson with Ray Mace another week for the last two years there.
And then halfway through my senior years when I. Auditioned for the Nashville Symphony and was offered that job because that was February of 2022. And then August of 2022 is when I [00:33:00] got my job here in Santa Fe, Santa Fe Opera. Mm-hmm. And so I still had one more year to go after that, the, the one master’s year.
So what I did, I had to start in Nashville in September of that year. So what I would do is I would do a lot of, you know, flying back and forth to get in some lessons and the remaining academic courses that I had to do on Zoom and also things I had to get done in person included my recital and my my jury, stuff like that.
It was still nice to have that year. I’m starting my professional career. I still get to go play for Chris and Ray and, and see what they think, especially if they see if they have any thoughts on, you know, how my playing is progressing as I get more immersed into the professional job. That was pretty much my, my time at Julliard.
Another thing about, about, you know, being at, at Julliard, I was very lucky to be. Part of a class of brass players, the class of 20, 22, really good players in that class. The trombone player that was accepted that year, Carlos Fernandez, who was our principal trombone in the New York City Ballet. And so [00:34:00] with him and, and a few other guys, you know, Deandre Dezi, Ryan Williamson, Eric Larson, you know, we got to, you know, be in this quintet for all four of our undergrad years together.
And it was just such a privilege, especially being in the dorms with some of these guys that, you know, remained in the dorms for as long as I did. I was in the dorms for all four years in my, my undergrad. So it was, it was just so nice to have those late night conversations with other brass players, especially, you know, non trumpet players.
You know, staying up till three, four in the morning talking about different brass splitting concepts. I would literally wake up a better brass player and musician because of these late night conversations. And so for that reason, for that experience, you know, whenever I’m giving any major educational suggestions to students, I, I always say, you know, you see your private teacher about once a week, you’ll learn a certain amount in that hour, you know, once a week.
But you’re fellow classmates around here, you know, you’re seeing them pretty much every day. And if you’re in, in the dorms, you know, you’re around them pretty much 24 7. You know, so [00:35:00] try to, you know, have as many conversations as you can. If you, if there’s someone, especially in your studio that plays your instrument, can do something that you can’t do, rather than do the two of the most toxic things you can possibly do, or, you know, one, be self-deprecating and go, oh, that person can do something that I can’t do, you know, I’ll never be able to do that.
Or the other thing is, oh, that person can do something that I can’t do. I’m going to hate that person forever. Rather than doing one of those two things, you can always just ask, Hey, how do you do that? And then that starts that conversation, and then you become a smarter musician and a smarter person after that conversation, assuming the person is willing to, you know, share a few secrets.
Yeah. But, uh, you know, you have this wealth of knowledge in your own classroom before you even get to your private lessons. So, so that’s something that I always found that I was, you know, fortunate to be in an environment like that. And I try to take as much of an advantage of that as I could.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Fa fabulous advice.
And, and so true. You know, so true. I mean, there’s so many reasons, and I’m no psychiatrist, but, you [00:36:00] know, fueled by jealousy or, you know, remorse or whatever, that we, we as humans will tend to shut off or, yeah, immediately. Oh, someone could do something. I can’t, like you said, and be jealous of them. Hate them to shut off and instead of, Hey.
Yeah. So simple, especially the way hit, right? Yeah. How’d you do that? You know, uh, which I think, you know, I’ve had a lot of folks from the, you know, bill Adams, students from Indiana, and that was a, you know, big part of Indiana University pedagogy was the camaraderie and the sharing with each other. And so, I mean, it really sounds like you immersed yourself, uh, almost 24 hours a day while you were at, at Julliard.
Before we get onto your time in Nashville, I do wanna, because you mentioned kind of the progress you made from when you came in as a applying student to Julliard, to then where you left and how much you improved. Was it stuff specifically that you know, Chris, uh, worked with you on, or Ray or both of them, and if so, what, what were the kinds of things they, this is the thing as someone who went to a state school out here in la, you know, it’s like you assume if you get into [00:37:00] Juli Julliard, you already played great.
You know, so then what does that progress look like? What does that growth look like from already playing great to, you know, winning the audition or the professional you are now? And
WILL LEATHERS: one of the main reasons why I was accepting the PL in the first place. I, I think, you know, I’ve never actually talked to Chris or Ray or, or Mark or any, anyone about, about this actually.
You know, I’m, I’ve never actually asked, you know, why did you accept me in the first place? Why did you like me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. May, maybe I should just outta curiosity, but I, I think the main, the main reason why I was able to get into a school like Juilliard is, and based off of, you know, the type of player I was at the time is, is I was able to, you know, in that 10 minute span and audition, I was able to present that I had a certain amount of a talent and, what’s the word I’m looking for?
It’s not, it’s not promise, it’s potential. Potential, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had a cer, I had a certain amount of talent and potential, which is essentially what you want to look for if, [00:38:00] if you are, if you’re a teacher at a conservatory or university or whatever. And so. The student-teacher relationship with both, you know, between me and Chris Martin and between me and, and Ray Mace was, you know, how do we kind of apply this and teach me more things, you know, make me a smarter musician so that I know how to use the talent.
Of course there’s putting in hard work, but how do you do, how do you work hard in an intelligent way? So you, so all of that can be applied to professional standards. I, I guess, I guess I’d say, you know, art artistically, intricate standards. And so a lot of that came with, especially when I was an underclass, met a lot of fundamentals, a lot of fundamentals with Chris.
He would, he would assign me different things to, to practice and a lot of my studies with Chris. What, what was so helpful about that? You know, he, he, he, he plays quite a bit in lessons and I found that to be very helpful because here’s one of the best trumpet players in the world, you know, playing right next to me for [00:39:00] an hour, once a week.
So I, I, I’ve always learned very well with my ear. And so just listening to him and trying to emulate, you know, at the very least, try to get the kind of tone quality that he’s getting. And along with everything else that Chris Martin can do, just try to chase and chase and chase what he is doing and try to slap my own character.
On top of that, when I played the trumpet, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to just listen to him. You know, he could have never said a word ever in a lesson, you know, always had a lot to say, but even if he never said a word to me in a lesson and just played, I still would’ve learned a ton and become a much better musician.
And so that became very helpful when we were working on everything from orchestral excerpts to solo repertoire, chamber of music, whatever it was. Hearing Chris explain something and, and hearing him play, it really helped me out with, okay, that’s what that should sound like when it’s complete. And so by the time I got to Ray Mace.
He was able to give, give me a, a [00:40:00] ton of information from, you know, his musical perspective on just generally how I can become a better musician, giving me suggestions. Maybe you should play this phrasing this way. You know, maybe try that Exits on e-flat trumpet, stuff like that, that kind of helps me make better musical choices with the abilities that I’ve developed at this point in time.
Mm-hmm. And so I, I think all that kind of contributed to me being able to have some successful auditions and be able to make good decisions when I’m doing something like, for example, putting together an album or, you know, preparing for different performances, whether it’s a symphonic performance or an opera performance or, or recital or anything like that.
You know, just making the very artistic decisions.
JOHN SNELL: Amazing. Amazing. And I’m glad, yeah. Amazing description too, kinda window into what happens with someone who can already play the Tomasi at 17 and you know, what kind of growth happens to get you to where you are today. And I, I love, I kind of, in [00:41:00] passing, you had mentioned like, one of the things, Chris, really, how did you, on how did may not be the right word, but like you really, he had a focus on fundamentals, which you think, okay man, you can play all this fast technical stuff already, but it still goes back to fundamentals.
You know what he, Kobe Bryant, one of my heroes,
WILL LEATHERS: you know?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Uh, one of the greatest, greatest to do it. And he would, you know, spend hours and hours shooting free throws, even though he was still the top in the league. So I, I so was Nashville. Uh, now moving on, is n was Nashville, was that your first big audition or had you just started
WILL LEATHERS: doing others?
Uh, I, I had taken I think about five professional auditions before that. Mm-hmm. And in those five auditions, I never got outta the first round. And then, so, and then number six was Nashville. Interesting. It’s interesting. As soon as I advanced, I already kind of saw that as an accomplishment. I had never done that before.
Mm-hmm. And they asked me to return the next day for what, be the day of the semi-finals and the file rounds. So I figured I’d, you know, [00:42:00] play the semis and see how far I can get. And then at the end of the day, they offer me the job. So, you know, I feel very lucky to, to have gotten a, a job straight outta school.
And it’s been a very good one too. You know, lots of nice people, especially in the back row. Lots of really good players mm-hmm. To sit with and play with as well. And it’s, it’s been, you know, really remarkable working with John. Carl Guerrero are, I guess now outgoing music director. He just finished this past year.
It’s been great working with him the past three years. And he’s made me a better musician. The, the other musicians, the orchestra made me a better musician. And you were what, 22? 23? 2021. 21, geez. 21 when I started. Yeah. Yeah, that’s incredible.
JOHN SNELL: Absolutely incredible.
WILL LEATHERS: Uh, and in the short span of time since then, I’m now the, I was the youngest player then, now I’m the third youngest player.
’cause, ’cause then we got, uh, chance Gomer on, uh, bass trombone, who’s few months younger than me. And then, yeah, we got Chandler Courier on Principal Tuba. He won the job before he could [00:43:00] even legally drink. I think he, yeah, he was it 20 years old? Yeah, he, he, yeah, he won the job at 20, started the job at 20 as well.
Incredible.
JOHN SNELL: Incredible.
WILL LEATHERS: And so inspiring. You know, so, and I went to school with Chandler too, so,
JOHN SNELL: yeah. If it’s so inspiring ’cause folks think, oh, you know, if you want job, and it’s true, like jobs are fewer and farther between, and, oh, you have to be in a, you know, Podunk symphony, uh, middle of nowhere, do a part-time thing for, to work your way up the ladder and then you might win a bigger gig, things like that.
And it’s, um, it’s api it’s inspiring, especially for young folks that are listening to this to know that, you know, you immerse yourself like you did. You spend the hours. Live and dream trumpet, get the best information you can and these kinds of things are possible. Was, and I know your father is a professional musician, so did he help you along with your other teachers in terms of now once you’re on the job, like, I mean, it sounded like you got a lot of professional coaching from Chris and Ray as well, but anything in particular like you had to learn once you’re sitting there in the [00:44:00] hot seat, so to speak?
With the
WILL LEATHERS: education that I had at that point from my dad and Chris Ola and Uber to Jim Thompson and Chris Martin, Ray Mason, and Julliard and everything else that was mm-hmm. Available at Julliard. After that, everything that I, that I had to learn about playing the job, I was able to kinda learn it, you know, on the job.
And so it’s just kind of picking up on, on experience.
JOHN SNELL: So when you’re in Nashville, was it difficult for you being, especially in a principal role at such a young age with, you know, members in the orchestra and conductors that are twice or three times your age?
WILL LEATHERS: I think for me, firstly with my colleagues there and, and with the boss as well, you know, they, they all welcome me with, with open arms and they were willing to, you know, be as nurturing as possible for me.
I felt pretty comfortable, honestly starting out. And I think that’s mostly because of the, the, uh, the experience that I, I got to have, you know, [00:45:00] both in youth orchestra growing up and in orchestra concerts at Juilliard because I got to play principal on Mahler five at Carnegie with Julliard Orchestra, David Robertson conducting, and I got to play principal on, on pictures at an exhibition coming out of the pandemic with Jeff Larky conducting, and Jeff Larky is actually my colleague here in the Santa Fe Opera now gone from being one of my teachers to being one of my colleagues.
He plays principal Tiffany here. And so those two con concepts and never everything else performance wise that I got to do at Julliard and everything in youth orchestra growing up, I, I think that made me especially comfortable with playing first trumpet in an, in an orchestra. ’cause by that time, with the experience that I had, I knew that this is the way I want to sound, this is the way that I, I should sound in relation to, you know, depending on what the people on either side of me and around me are, are doing.
And at that point, it was kind of, it was more of a matter of adjusting. I, I know what I want to sound like and I know how, along the way I’ve, I’ve learned collaborative musical skills. So [00:46:00] then it’s just a matter of how do I collaborate with this group of musicians?
JOHN SNELL: You make it seem so simple. It’s amazing.
I love it.
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah. Well, I mean, there, there’ll always be certain de details of the process that are, that are less simple than others. You know, there are always, you know, things to fig figure out. Um, get to a schedule where you’re doing some subscription concerts here in there, and then you’re doing. Pop stuff around it, and then you’re doing all, all these other things.
So there’s stuff to figure out, like, like how do you practice efficiently around that and how do you just like, take care of your chops and whatnot, so mm-hmm. You know, there, there are, you know, many examples like that, of, of certain challenges to, to overcome. But, you know, with the experience behind, eventually those things get figured out with just a little bit extra brain power, I’d say.
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Man, I wish they had my head screwed on as straight as yours and twice your age. Oh, man, what a, what a pleasure talking to you. Yeah.
WILL LEATHERS: Well, I’m a trouble player too, so it can’t be screwed on that straight. Can it?
JOHN SNELL: So tell me, tell me about your album now. I mean, what, like, you’re just not that [00:47:00] long outta school.
You have two high level professional jobs, you know, what else is there to do, but then also record an album in which you played trumpet and piano on. So first of all, what was the impetus of it? What made you decide, hey, I need to do an album now?
WILL LEATHERS: It was kind of a matter of, okay, I had gotten to a point where it’s exactly like you said, I have the super professional jobs now, so now it’s like, along with, you know, those responsibilities, what else should I do now?
And so the album kind of came to mind because there are pieces that I’ve always wanted to, uh, record. And, and there’s also been kind of a process of figuring out what kinds of music should I be recording in the sense of how can I best contribute to the field of a classical trumpet and just recorded music in general.
And so sometimes there’d be a piece, like, I remember I was working on the, the delow in contest for my, I think, what was it, my master’s title or my senior [00:48:00] style, I think it was my master’s title that I did it for. Mm-hmm. That was one. Mm-hmm. One of the ones I had to, that was the one I had to fly back from Nashville for, to complete and then, then fly back for a concert.
So I was working on that in, in a lesson for, for Ray. And he said, you know, this is probably a good piece for you to record. He said, you know, a lot of people record the hide and, and, and humble and stuff like that. But he said to me, you know, a piece like this is, is where you might be able to give a lot of musical contribution.
So, I don’t know if it was, it was in unexpected compliment, but it, it kind of made me think for a little bit and I was like, ah, I guess I must be, you know, approaching the music in a certain way where, you know, I can offer something different. So, so I tried to make the album a lot about that. That’s actually on the album.
What else is on the album is Steve RAs is the Avatar, which I, I think before my recording there were two in existence, including Ray Mac’s recording. And so, [00:49:00] because I look up to, to Ray so much, and especially because of that recording and everything else with, you know, my studies with Ray and just, just knowing him as a person and whatnot, you know, I wanted to put out my own take of it.
You know, some other standard stuff that I like to play, like the Hogar Entrada. No, I wanted to get that from there. I wanted to get one of my solo trumpet compositions in there, which I just called the five pieces for solo trumpet. That piece I wrote in 2021, it was actually a final assignment for a theory class that was taught by Eric Zen, Dr.
Erica Zen. Wow. And so basically he, he just said, you know, three weeks before the semester was gonna be over, you know, your final assignment is to write a piece for your instrument. I hadn’t really composed, like, done a formal composition before at that point. So for pretty much all of those three weeks, I, I had writer’s block, I had trouble putting something in my head on paper, you, and so the night before, I didn’t really have any material that I was happy with, so I just kind of scrapped it all and turned on the microphone Open [00:50:00] Logic Pro.
And I just played a bunch of licks until I had, you know, something that I was happy with, you know, five minutes of material. I pulled an all-nighter doing that and I presented it over Zoom in class the next morning. ’cause we were still in pandemic times. Mm-hmm. So Dr. Waysin was like, wow, that sounds great.
Would you be able to send me a copy of the music? And I was like, you see, the thing is that I have to kind of, you know, transcribe myself. ’cause I didn’t actually write this down yet. So he was okay with that, you know, so I, I wrote it all down and I sent it to him and that was my final assignment. So I decided to put that on my, on my album as well.
Some other stuff in my album. I was gonna say, you do Modo
JOHN SNELL: Perpetual,
WILL LEATHERS: that’s on there as well. Yeah. And that was, that was my mom’s idea actually. There few really good recordings of that already. Obviously Mendez did it in, in 61, I think. Mm-hmm. And I think he recorded that on the same day as that entire album.
That, that, that, that’s on as well.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, that’s the story. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He just, and
WILL LEATHERS: went,
JOHN SNELL: just banged [00:51:00] it out.
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah. And Winton’s got one. My, my, my teacher from Canada, Chris Ola also has one. Really? On his album. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my mom said, why don’t you record this? You know, this will make me really happy.
So I decided to do that, but I wanted to try it out in the original key. And so I, I did that. The easiest part of that whole thing was, funny enough, the piano part be beep, be, be, and then, so the part I, I did do it with some, some splices as, as did everyone else. I believe the amount of splices it took anyone to record that was, was Mendez.
He would’ve done it in four pieces. So three splices. There are claims by his, I read somewhere, there are claims by his sons that he was able to do it all the way through with circular breathing. But the story that I understand, like I could be wrong, that on the day of, he was a little bit worried about, you know, recording that and getting through the entire album all on one face on, on that day.
So he, the rest of the album? [00:52:00] Yeah. Yeah. So he went into, you know, this is, this is the analog tape recording days. So he went into the, the studio with the, the engineers and basically marked triangle dings into the score. Yep. And then that’s where they would cut it and paste it. So there were three of those triangle dings.
And so there were three. And, and so I believe, I, I think the car cop did did some cuts too, but I’m not exactly sure. Maybe I should have asked him. But I, ICG how we, how we recorded that. But, or maybe he did it all in one take. I don’t know. It wouldn’t really surprise me. ’cause this is, this isn’t a card call we’re talking about.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. I think Sir is supposed to be on the podcast at some point when we can actually nail him down at one place at one time. So maybe I can bring that, we can. Okay, cool. The other side of the bell can be the somewhat authoritative, authoritative source on, uh, Moto Perpetual. Uh, but I, I, I mean obviously I was not in the room with Rafael when he recorded that, but your story, I have on very good advice that that’s how it works.
Like you can hear the, okay, you can hear the three chimes, two or three chimes to make it a clear [00:53:00] so that they could splice the tape. And that the bleed over of the, of the, uh, triangle made it cleaner in the final product so that he could either breathe or pick up from there. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not that it by any means, takes anything away from the performance or Oh, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, of course. You know, and I did
WILL LEATHERS: it, I did it in a lot of, a lot of takes myself and I, I spliced together and I was able to do it myself since now it’s, it’s so easy to just kind of fade together when you’re recording into Logic Pro. Yeah. Um, once you kind of figure out, like, I, I used to mess around in Garage Band when I was 12, 13 years old, and all it takes is to take those skills and graduate to Logic Pro before you kind of figure out how to do whatever you want.
So that’s essentially what I did after I finished recording that. So I record, I actually recorded that in December of 2023 in Nashville, just, just at home and Really? Yeah. And I was, I was recording that around some orchestra services, actually some op contract Nutcracker performances with [00:54:00] the Nashville Ballet.
And so I wasn’t feeling particularly healthy, but at the time, you know, I was starting to get a little bit of chest pain through both the orchestra services and, and the recording motor perpetual. And then after I finished that whole thing and I went home for Christmas, I, I realized that I had bronchitis.
And so, oh no. And it, and it really, you know, hit the fan. Mm-hmm. You know, once, once I got home for Christmas. So it, I guess it, it had turned out that I was just beginning to get bronchitis while I was recording of all things mud perpetual that ma made me have to do more takes than I probably would’ve if I were healthy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then to make matters worse, at the tail end of recovering from that, I had to play pictures at, at work in, in early January of 2024. So that was, man, getting through, uh, Samuel Goldenberg and spiel was, was pretty tough, you know, on that. But. Still made it from point A to point B. So it is what it is.
JOHN SNELL: That’s Well, yeah. You know, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Now you have that in your bag of tricks of, Hey, if I can do record modo [00:55:00] perpetual and get through pictures on tail ends of bronchitis, you can do anything. Right?
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Amazing. So that’s on there. What, what else? Ar Oh, my arrangement of, oh, Canada, the Canadian national anthem and mm-hmm.
You know, as someone who grew up in Canada, born and raised there. So the story behind that, I actually put together that arrangement in 2017 when I was graduating from, from high school, you know, my high school. I graduated high school when I was 16. There’s a long story behind that, but my high school asked me to play the national anthem at the graduation ceremony.
And so the ceremony was at, on a Thursday that week, and I, I had agreed to do it on the Monday of that week, and I, I figured I would just go up there and play it solo trumpet. But actually later that night, a whole arrangement. A couple, Canada came to me in a dream. Mm-hmm. And then, so on Tuesday since exams and, and all that were done and I had two days to kind of spend at home hanging out, doing nothing, I decided to put together [00:56:00] an arrangement.
And that’s, you know, there’s synthesizers and drum loops on it and all that. And I, I, I wanted to create an arrangement of it that’s different as a combination of different styles and, and is also, you know, very respectful of both the anthem and the country and all that. And, and makes anyone who’s listening to it feel a sense of pride, even if they’re not Canadian.
Hmm. So that’s the arrangement that I have on the album. So I performed it for the first time at that graduation ceremony in 2017. My, I recorded it a few days later, and then I rerecorded it in the summer of 2019. And so that’s the, that’s the version that’s on the album, the 2019 recording. Yeah. And, and, and I also have a spoken introduction over some synthesizers that I put together, the very first track in the album that’s called White Dove.
Introduction. Mm-hmm. And so basically I came up with this fictional airline called White Dove Airlines. This is kind of a nod to a family passion of aviation. My, my grandfather, William Dayton Leathers, [00:57:00] he was actually in the first Canadian Air Force ground crew in World War ii, and he actually, he had his little Cessna plane and he was actually in charge of delivering a, a message to the American government, I think this was in 1961.
And so he landed in Washington and, and asked the people there, Hey, would, uh, would JFK want to take a ride in the plane? And, and unfortunately the president didn’t agree to that, you know, he didn’t want to, but he did end up signing his log book. And so, oh, cool. Yeah, so that’s, that’s a little story I like to tell along with the, you know, flight engineer.
So it actually depicts me as a pilot, even though I don’t have like. Pilot license, at least not yet. Mm-hmm. Um, it kind of depicts me as a pilot announcing what the in-flight entertainment will be, which is everything on, on the album. I name all the composers and I named the, the artists I’m collaborating with in the very last track, which is called Blue Sky Purple Clouds, Michael Biari, you know, I introduced him.
And then I also talk about Ika Gershman, the, uh, arranger for the penultimate track on the album, which [00:58:00] is Maurice S Love That is a, uh, flute and piano arrangement that she did for herself. And she actually just recently published that. And I figured as a last minute addition, because there was one piece that I recorded that I was unable to get the rights to.
So I actually reached out and asked her, Hey, you know, could I play your rage on, on this album? And it was a very, very challenging process to, uh, to record that, especially considering it’s, it’s written for fluid. And, and, you know, Nikas quite the prodigy. She’s a Julliard now. I think she’s, I’m not even sure if she’s 17 yet.
But, uh, you know, she, you know, arranges this thing and plays the hell out of it. Mm-hmm. And so I was like, Hey, I don’t wanna do that. You know, like, maybe she’ll let me do that on my album. So that’s on there. I don’t know if there’s any, any other repertoire.
JOHN SNELL: I think that covers, yeah, we’ve got the Canada Yurt five Fess, the Avatar.
Hager Paganini, the Incantation Rale, and then the Blue Sky Purple Clouds. Which is the title? Yeah, that’s all of it. Title, title Track. So why, why did you decide to call the, the album Blue Sky Purple Clouds?
WILL LEATHERS: Oh, yeah. So the story behind this one, [00:59:00] this was a collaborative project that Michael Gobar and I put together.
You know, I, I came up with the melody. He came up with pretty much everything else underneath and around that, all the, all the synthesizer. And he played, that’s the only track on the album where he played the piano when I didn’t. He has Synta as well, so he sees music in color and all of his colors are different from mine.
And so since the pieces in the KG major, we were trying to come up with the name for it. And now I was like, you know, just outta curiosity, what color is your G major? And said, oh, my G major is blue. And I said, well, my G major is purple. And so the piece, it’s got this kind of tranquil, futuristic, naturistic combination of sounds going on.
So something to do with those two colors in nature. We just eventually settled on blue sky purple clouds. You know, we already have blue skies and we really only get purple clouds when you have a special type of sunset. So it’s, we really felt like that name kind of set the tone for what we had created together.
And that’s in the [01:00:00] name of the, the album. ’cause I, I feel like the adventure through a scene like that can be obviously very beautiful. And then that fits in very well with the introduction. I wanted to, to put in, you know, flying on a fictional airline through the skies and then so everything else in between, it just kind of created the adventure through those blue sky and purple clouds.
JOHN SNELL: I love it. I love the story and I love what you put together. And unfortunately, I always get folks that e email me. I don’t get, I don’t get very many angry emails about the podcast, but folks that, you know, you have these great artists on, and then we can’t hear them play. And I’d love to play tracks, but the problem is with podcasting software and with YouTube and stuff, even if we have the permission to play clips and things, it ends up being a copyright night where primarily YouTube.
So for the folks listening, that’s why we don’t play tracks. If folks obviously wanna listen after hearing you talk about this, and also just knowing you and wanting to hear you play, where can folks listen to the album? Is it on the streaming services or cd or you can you buy it somewhere? [01:01:00] Where can we get it?
WILL LEATHERS: It’s on all streaming services and there are CDs available. I have a a band camp link and then I, I think it’s supposed to be available on Amazon soon. The CDs are available for purchase on Amazon if they’re not. Already. So if if it’s not up there, it’s still in progress.
JOHN SNELL: It’s in the works. Yeah. And I’ll, we’ll make sure we have the links.
I know will leathers.com is your main website, but I’m working with Brian, your manager, so we’ll make sure we have all the links to everywhere folks can listen to it. So just if you’re watching this on YouTube, look down on the description or if you’re listening to this and you’re a podcast player, look at the description and you’ll have easy access to, uh, blue Sky Purple Clouds.
Absolutely. Wonderful. Uh, well, I mean, and I hate asking these questions ’cause I know the album just came out, but what’s next? Do you got something else in the pipeline or are you already looking at what the next project is?
WILL LEATHERS: I am working on another album project with Michael Gspa. We’re gonna see what else we can come up with when we mm-hmm.
Put our heads together and come up with some more [01:02:00] melodies and some more synthesized stuff and, uh, put it all together into, into something where the, the, well, I, I guess I won’t say the name of the, the project here just yet, but, uh, you know, we’re, we’re cooking something up.
JOHN SNELL: Well, that’s it. More anticipation to make sure the folks follow you on social media and check in on the website every now, now, and then.
’cause nice to know your volume two, so to speak, is in the work. So that’s awesome. I mean, and then folks can always hear you in the Nashville Symphony during the year and then Santa Fe Opera, is that your round or that’s just a summer?
WILL LEATHERS: Santa Fe opera is just 10 weeks in the summer.
JOHN SNELL: Okay. So that’s where you’re at now.
And uh, man, absolute pleasure having you on. Well, looking forward to checking in with you in a few years later on in your career. See, see what you’ve done and where you’re at. Uh, mention the website, will others.com. Anything else? Anywhere else you wanna tell people to follow you? What’s the best place?
Instagram or YouTube channel? Yeah, Instagram.
WILL LEATHERS: Yeah. Yeah, Instagram. L is boy. That’s also on my website too.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, and we’ll, we’ll have it [01:03:00] as a little button down below to make it as easy as possible. And I, I mean, I don’t know what trumpet player or musician isn’t following you already ’cause you post such great content.
I’m always checking to see what you’re up to. But absolute honor having you on Will, before I let you go, I do have one last question and it’s always a doozy and well, and maybe not, ’cause I know you also do some keynote speaking and things like that. So this might be also right up your alley. But if you could leave our listeners with one piece of advice that you would consider your best piece of advice, what would that be?
WILL LEATHERS: Depending on the context of the situation, I always tend to give a piece of advice like this in some variation. But I guess my, my advice to everyone and, and you know, no matter whether it’s music or whether it’s something else that you’re doing, you know, just, just, just never stop learning. ’cause the more you learn and, and the smarter you get and the, the smarter you get, the better, the better musician you can be.
Or if you’re not a musician, the better at that. Whatever you do, you will be and, and the better human being you’ll be.
JOHN SNELL: Awesome. Wonderful advice, wonderful [01:04:00] conversation. And next time we’re at an ITG or some event, some event together, I’ll make sure I come up and introduce myself so we can actually All right.
Yeah. Meet in person will absolute honor having you on. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Well, a huge thank you to Will for being on the show in his busy schedule. I was, I have to admit, I was a little jealous. He was outside in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’s there of course, doing the Santa Fe opera season.
And, uh, heard birds chirping in the background and, uh, what a beautiful area of the country. Not that I mind being here at the front room at the shop, you know, it’s also a great place to be, but a huge thank you less. I digress. A huge thank you to Will for taking the time to do the interview. By all means, please check out his album, blue Sky Purple Clouds.
You know, we talk a lot about it in the interview. And what a, what a debut album. Uh, you know, he really set the standard high for future projects of his both with the repertoire he played, and of course the musicality and the technique that [01:05:00] he displays in that album. So, absolutely wonderful discussion, and I can’t look him back.
I mean, between Alexandra Ridout and Will Leathers to really young. Players early in their careers with their heads screwed on straight As I told Will man, I wished I had my head screwed on straight at 46, that he does at half my age. And same thing with Alexandra. It gives us, uh, hope for the future, both in the world and more specifically in music and the creative space.
Of course, uh, reach out to will@willleathers.com. You can learn about. All of the things he’s doing. You can also get his album Blue Sky Purple Clouds. We’ll also have other links in the show notes and in the description down below, uh, where you can go directly to his Amazon page, and I think it’s on Bandcamp as well.
So all of those links will be down below if you want to check out his album. But also if you just wanna see, uh, if you’re listening to this in the future and you wanna see what Will is up to next, check out his website@willleathers.com. And also on Instagram. He’s prolific on there [01:06:00] as well. I, I don’t know how he finds the time of the day to do all the stuff he does.
And certainly we’ll have, uh, check in with Will later on, maybe episode, uh, 175 or 225. So a few years down the road, we’ll check back in with Will to see where he is at in his career. Thank you again for listening. We have some wonderful guests coming up. As I mentioned in the intro, Kate Moore from the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Uh, Dave Douglas, the world renowned jazz trumpet player, although I. Having just interviewed him, I don’t wanna call him, I don’t wanna, uh, pigeonhole him into the label of jazz, uh, uh, creative trumpet player, artist Dave Douglas. And, um, uh, he has his own label as well. Hit that subscribe button, hit that notification button if you’re on YouTube.
And please, please, please, please leave a comment. Feed the algorithm, feed the algorithm monster. Wherever you’re listening to this, hit that five star review, hit that thumbs up on YouTube and leave us a comment because that really, really helps [01:07:00] us become more visible. Again, this is a labor of love for all of us.
I mean, I’m absolutely enjoyed doing it, but, uh, since we put this podcast out for free, that little favor in return really means a lot to us. Thank you for listening. Look forward to seeing you, uh, at a future event or here at the shop. And until next time, let’s go out and make some music.
