Charles Schlueter - Retrospective - A Life in Trumpet (2022)

The Trumpet Shall Sound! This retrospective set featuring Charlie Schlueter covers a wide range of moods and styles: Bravura and virtuosic, poignant and evocative, solo trumpet and chamber music, and trumpet featured as soloist with both orchestral and wind ensemble accompaniment.

Charlie Schlueter was one of the world’s greatest orchestral principal trumpeters for over four decades, culminating in positions with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared worldwide as soloist, teacher and clinician, and many of Charlie’s former students in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Boston have gone on to have their own successful careers.

Essays by former students and colleagues that beautifully attest to Charlie’s character and accomplishments as a teacher, musician, trumpet player and human being appear in the appendix of his just:released book, Indirection. The Charles Schlueter Foundation continues to celebrate and preserve the trumpet’s cultural and artistic heritage, commission works for brass instruments, promote music performance and education, support professional achievement and international collaboration, and encourage young musicians by providing lessons, master classes and workshops.

As a performer, teacher and friend, Charlie’s authenticity, empathy and insight are a unique set of traits that have touched the lives of many people. Humor―that most important human quality―is so abundantly present in Charlie. It’s easy to understand how listeners fall in love with Charlie’s sound. A musician’s sound tells you who they are―and since Charlie is a tremendously honest, caring and secure person, he and his sound will always be one and the same.

And what a sound! At its most focused, it seems to coalesce into a shimmering river, equal parts core and resonance, the substance of which is like a bridge that can carry thousands of tons and is built to carry a million more―a sound that can leave listeners astonished, with all of their molecules resonating in perfect alignment. He’s also a master of dynamic range, from a dominating fortissimo to the most gossamer of pianissimi. If the world were full of such people, traits such as gender, age, skin color, physical appearance, history and ethnic background would mean nothing, and we’d all be making music together.

In Charlie’s teaching, he conveys to his students the most fundamental principles regarding “wind and song,” using his own Zen approach, and he’s always attended many of his students’ recitals. Charlie possesses the greatest gift a teacher can have: The ability to see each student for who they are. His ownership of the concepts of note shape, phrasing, musicality and sound quality are seminal and transformative. Charlie Schlueter has been and continues to be a force for beauty and love in the world, exemplifying the words of Emerson: The only true gift is a portion of thyself. It’s a beautiful thing when someone so giving has such an extraordinary amount to give.