JEMMIE ROBERTSON trombone
Yoko Yamada-Selvaggio piano

A New Day Dawning refers to the continually expanding expressive possibilities of the trombone. On this recording, I have sought to champion several great works I believe deserve a more prominent place in the trombone discography. All of the works featured, including two recent and exciting new pieces by Kenneth Kreuzer and James Thornton, are musically and technically well-suited to the instrument, and deserve a place at the center of its expanding repertoire. At the beginning of this new millennium we are experiencing a renaissance of trombone artistry, a trend I believe will continue as long as we persevere in performing and recording new works and encourage more to be written. I was inspired early in my career to take on a project such as this by the many fine recordings of trombone artists in the 1980s and 1990s. I hope this disc in some way continues and expands that tradition.

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American trombonist JEMMIE ROBERTSON, Visiting Assistant Professor of Low Brass at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, is an active soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He is a busy musician in the Chicago area where he has performed with numerous ensembles including the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Music of the Baroque, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Philharmonic, Chicagoland Pops, Illinois Philharmonic, Elgin Symphony, Rockford Symphony, Northwest Indiana Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Kenosha Symphony, Lincoln Park Brass, Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Tower Brass.

Dr. Robertson has previously been a member of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band. In 2006, Mr. Robertson completed a DM degree in performance at Northwestern University where he studied with Chicago Symphony Orchestra trombonist Michael Mulcahy. While in residence, he conducted the Northwestern Trombone Choir and served as Assistant Conductor of the Northwestern Brass Choir. He received a Master of Music from Yale University, where he studied with John Swallow and Scott Hartman, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Northern Colorado where he studied with Buddy Baker.

Honors include being selected as a featured soloist and participant for the first Joseph Alessi Seminar in 1999 and then again at the 2006 Alessi Seminar in Fossano, Italy. In 1995, Mr. Robertson was the winner of the Rocky Mountain Concerto Competition, and in summer 2000 he performed with the National Orchestral Institute where he worked extensively with the principal trombonists of the Boston, Baltimore and National Symphony Orchestras. In 2004, he conducted and performed with the Northwestern Trombones at the International Trombone Festival in Ithaca, New York and in 2006 he performed Luciano Berio’s Sequenza V at the Eastern Trombone Workshop. In February 2007, Mr. Robertson was honored to participate in the World Premiere performances of Pulitzer Prize winning composer John Harbison’s Umbrian Landscape with Saint with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

Recent performances include the Spring 2008 Midwest tour with the Augustana Symphonic Band, directed by Dr. James Lambrecht, during which Mr. Robertson played the virtuosic Bourgeois Trombone Concerto. In June 2008, he performed with the Cramer Memorial Trombone choir at the International Trombone Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah and joined that ensemble in performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the nationally broadcast program "Music and The Spoken Word".

Mr. Robertson is a founding member of ProBono (a Chicago based professional trombone quartet) and is also a member of the Artemis Brass. Since 2000, he has spent his summers in Breckenridge, Colorado, where he plays with the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra. In the summer of 2008, he was a featured soloist at the festival’s annual Baroque Bash, performing the Albrechtsberger Alto Trombone Concerto.

Mr. Robertson is an Edwards Artist/Clinician and performs on an Edwards Tenor Trombone. For this recording, Mr. Robertson played an Edwards T-350 Tenor Trombone with a 321CF Bell, rose brass tuning slide, standard hand slide with nickel crook (TBC-N), Edwards Axial Flow Valve, and a T3 Silver Leadpipe with a Greg Black 5GS mouthpiece.

Japanese-American pianist Yoko Yamada-Selvaggio was born in Hamamatsu, Japan, and holds degrees in piano performance from the Toho Gakuen School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. She has appeared on WGBH in Boston and WFMT in Chicago. Currently a collaborating pianist in the Chicago area, she regularly performs with music professors from Northwestern University, DePaul University, Augustana College, and also with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and other noted Chicago-area musicians. Ms. Yamada-Selvaggio has appeared in concerts throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, and during her career has performed more than 300 works for brass and woodwind with piano. She and Jemmie Robertson have been performing together since 2003.