Stephen Burns, Conductor
Trumpet virtuoso and conductor Stephen Burns is the Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago. He has been acclaimed on four continents for his consistently and widely varied performances encompassing recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber ensemble engagements, and innovative multi-media presentations involving video, dance theatre, and sculpture. He began his studies at the age of ten and made his professional debut at the age of 14 performing Handel Aria “Let the Bright Seraphim” with coloratura soprano Elizabeth Phinney. In 1988 he won First Prize at the second Maurice Andre International Competition for Trumpet in France, which brought him numerous international engagements, including a Paris recital, national television appearances and tours of Europe, Asia and the United States.
Mr. Burns has performed in the major concert halls of New York, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, and Venice. He has been a guest at the White House and has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His European tours have taken him to Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland for guest appearances with orchestras, as well as recitals and performances on radio and television. On tour in the Far East he won rave reviews, which singled out his remarkable tone, musicianship, and technical facility. In recent seasons he has appeared with many leading international orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony under Neeme Jarvi, The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Iona Brown, The Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, The Arturo Toscanini Orchestra of Parma, the Japan National Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz, and a United States tour with the Leipzig Kammerorkester. His recital programs often feature his own transcriptions of Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Prokofiev’s Lt. Kije, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the latter scored for trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, bass trumpet, and piano.
In 1998 Stephen Burns was invited to create innovative new music programs as the Artist in Residence with Performing Arts Chicago. He is the Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project and the American Concerto Orchestra whose mission it is to champion classical music influenced and inspired by Pop culture, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Latin, Folk, Klezmer, World Music, literature, film, art, dance, and theatre.
A conducting student of Jorma Panula and Pinchas Zukerman, Mr. Burns often appears as both soloist and conductor with orchestras performing repertoire ranging from the Second Brandenburg Concerto and Haydn’s Eb major concerto to works by Copland, Shostakovitch and André Jolivet. He has performed this dual role with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Simon Bolivar Orquesta, the Orquesta da Camera del Tachira, the Sea Cliff Chamber Orchestra, and the American Concerto Orchestra.
He has given numerous premiers by American composers (Rorem, David Stock, Gunther Schuller, Robert Rodriguez, Philip Glass) as well as composers of international renown (Stockhausen, Franck Amsallem, Somei Satoh, Sallinen). Committed to new music, Mr. Burns has written for trumpet, electronic music, chamber music and symphony orchestra. His composition “Reflections,” a work created in collaboration with choreographer Ruby Shang, was performed around the Henry Moore reflecting pool at Lincoln Center. In 1993 he composed and performed the Inaugural Fanfare for the Kuhmon Talon Concert Hall and his most recent composition, “Variations in America” was premiered in Hyannis, MA as part if their Independence Day celebration. He is currently composing Phalanx, a multi-media work based upon American military musical themes.
Stephen Burns is a frequent guest artist at many prestigious summer festivals including Santa Fe, Kuhmo, Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, Spoleto, Caramoor, Lieksa, Grand Canyon, Moab, Estate Musicale St. Cecilia, and Divonne les Bains. His recordings include Telemann for Trumpet, with the American Concerto Orchestra, on Dorian, The Complete Sonatas for Brass by Paul Hindemith on Helicon, The Complete Brandenburg Concerti with Helmuth Rilling on Haenssler Classics, and Trumpet Voluntary on ASV records. He has also recorded for Kleos, Musical Heritage Society, Delos, Classical Masters, Ess.ay and Grammavision.
Originally from Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, Stephen Burns studied under Armando Ghitalla, Gerard Schwarz, Pierre Thibaud, and Arnold Jacobs at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Julliard School (BM/MM 1981-82), as well as in Paris and Chicago for post-graduate studies. He has won many prestigious awards including the 1981 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, 1982 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 1983 National Endowment for the Arts Recitalist Grant, the Naumburg Scholarship at Juilliard, “Outstanding Brass Player” at Tanglewood and the aforementioned 1988 Maurice Andre Concour International de Paris. Sought after internationally for master classes, Mr. Burns is a former tenured Professor of Music at Indiana University and Visiting Lecturer at the Arturo Toscanini Foundation Corso MYTHOS in Bologna, Italy. He presently resides in Chicago with his wife, school psychologist, Kate Neisser and their twin sons Edward and Isaac. Stephen Burns is a Yamaha performing artist.
Stephen's Interview:
How did you end up in Chicago?
It’s been a long voyage. I’ve lived in Boston, New York, and Paris, taught at Indiana University, and finally came to Chicago as Artist in Residence with Performing Arts Chicago (PAC). It’s been a fascinating process of experimentation and growth. When Susan Lipman at PAC invited me to design new programs of contemporary music I was intrigued by the possibility of creating new directions in classical music.
What is a “Fulcrum Point” anyway and what’s it have to do with classical music?
The fulcrum and lever are among the oldest tools of human civilization. In the physical world, when you want to move a massive object from its static position, like getting your car out of a rut, you place a wedge under or close to it and use a lever to get it unstuck. A fulcrum is that wedge and the fulcrum point is that balancing and leverage point.
As the name suggests, the FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT is the place where the torque, energy, and innovation of popular culture create a catalyst to advance the direction of classical music.
How do you explain to people the classical relevance of composers such Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa?
Relevance?!?! These were some of the most exceptional musicians in history and only recently have a new generation of composers begun to realize this and incorporate Jazz, Rock, Latin, and other popular music forms into the ongoing evolution of classical music.
Throughout the history of classical music, composers have mined the folk and social music of their time. Bach and Mozart wrote dances that were supreme extrapolations of the dances popular with the aristocracy. The 18th and 19th century symphonies were filled with marches, dances, and popular songs of every day life. Stravinsky and Bartok drew inspiration from their colloquial cultures, while Copland and Bernstein sourced Jazz, Broadway, and Country to give their music the flair and zest of America.
The goal of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project is to reintegrate classical music into everyday life.
What’s been your most memorable recent concert experience?
For me the Candlelight Concert for Healing at St. James Cathedral in December 2001 was a profoundly moving event. The confluence of that powerfully spiritual classical music with the heartfelt chants, prayers, and invocations from Chicago’s Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish leaders was the perfect response and antidote to the events of September 11th.
What are your musical influences?
I’m a true eclectic. As a child of the 60’s and a teen of the ‘70’s I grew up reveling in Rock, Blues, Funk and Fusion. Having immersed myself throughout the past 33 years in the study and practice of classical music, the great composers from Bach to Mozart and Mahler, Bartok, Copland, Bernstein, and Stockhausen have inspired and informed my artistic view. At the same time I have always had a profound appreciation for Ellington, Miles, Billie Holliday, Monk, and all improvising musicians whether in Jazz, Blues, Rock or World music. Tangentially I am greatly influenced by the new theater principles of Peter Brook and Robert Wilson. It was through their work that I developed a sensibility for context and the time/space relationship.
What inspires the programming of the Fulcrum Point New Music series?
Everything! Food, Film, Poetry, Politics, Dance, Art, Literature—Essentially life at the intersection of the visceral, spiritual, and intellectual. These three primal elements awaken a collective emotional response to our experiences and inspire a thematic or contextual structure. So, by taking fundamental ideas of birth, struggle and growth, celebration and death, marrying them to basic human arts of music, dance, art, literature--and now film/video—we take the events in our life and create relationships that enhance both the elemental and cerebral.
How does the Fulcrum Point New Music Project differ from other classical music groups?
Context. We put new music in new contexts that make sense rather than imposing new music on a 19th century concert structure.
Do you have to be a classical music fan to enjoy Fulcrum Point music?
Absolutely not! The only thing you need is an open mind, curiosity, and a willingness to let go and use your imagination to go where you’ve never been before.
If money were no object, what sorts of programming/ performing changes would you make to your annual series?
We would commission more artists and create collaborative possibilities between musicians, artists, poets, and dancers. I’d extend the visual/aural components and upgrade the technological aspects of the performance to be state of the art and integrate more video, sound sculpture, recording and internet web-casting capability.
Ultimately I see Fulcrum Point as an actual place where the creative forces of improvised and composed music could come together with the other arts in a social context; a creative think-tank and performance space with a great restaurant, dance club, and galleries that offer unlimited possibilities to create and live life to it’s fullest.