East Rock Park Gets A Trombone Serenade

It was the sound of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" that made a few walkers stop what they were doing and look up. Parents slowed on the grass and started to dance with their kids. A little girl in a tutu spun around in perfect time. The melody wound through the trees—And when she knows/What she wants from her ti-iii-iime—and settled on leaves that were just starting to turn yellow at the edges. 

Monday, Tempest 4 Trombone Quartet surprised masked joggers, strolling families, and Labor Day revelers with an hour-long trombone concert in East Rock Park. It kicked off a what the musicians, all graduate students at the Yale School of Music, hope will become weekly, free outdoor concerts with ample room for social distancing. All of the concerts are also live streamed on Facebook for listeners who are unable to make it or concerned about COVID-19.

"We're just so happy to be out here playing for people again," said Ryan Murray, a second-year graduate student who introduced the group with the just the slightest Texas twang. "We've not gotten to play for people for a very long time. We're just thrilled to be out here ... for people who knew that we were coming and people who didn't know that we were coming, we're just so thankful for you."

The quartet began last year as the Yale Trombone Quartet, a name members are trying to shake as they develop their own identity independent of the school (the Yale School of Music has long had a rotating trombone quartet; this is something different). With Murray, second-year students Samuel Anderson and Will Karceski make up three-fourths of the group. Murray's longtime friend Ben Dettelback, a first year student who he met years ago at a performing arts summer camp, is now the fourth.

Last year, the group was in the midst of planning what the year might look like after Dettelback auditioned for and was admitted to the Yale School of Music. Then COVID-19 hit campus. Classes went online as students were sent home or scrambled to figure out new living situations. The group had no way of playing together for roughly six months. 

Over the summer, they learned that they wouldn't be able to play together in school this fall. This semester, the Yale School of Music has moved the bulk of its classes online, while private lessons and studio seminars are at the discretion of individual faculty members. Trombone studio—six graduate students in total—is taught over Zoom. 

The group wanted to keep playing. When they returned to Connecticut in August, members chose the park as a rehearsal space because it allows for social distancing and is relatively close to their homes. Three of them live in East Rock; Dettelback is staying with family members in Madison and commutes. During concerts they perform several meters away from attendees, a distance that is meant to separate both listeners and musicians from aerosolized respiratory droplets that could carry COVID-19. 

In outdoor performances, members buck the canon for movie soundtracks—Disney and DreamWorks feature prominently—and decades-old hits from the 1960s and 1980s. Then jump from Shrek to Elvis to Eric Carmen, with pieces from Mulan and The Lion King sprinkled in between. Monday, over a dozen listeners came prepared with masks, which all but a few kept on for the entirety of the concert. 

Murray said the repertoire is meant to make the concerts feel easy and accessible, a sound-soaked distraction from COVID-19 when listeners may need it most. Because both concerts and rehearsals are in the park, New Haveners can happen upon them, stay for a few songs, and then continue on their way. He added that the group is still looking for area parks to perform. 

"Really, we're just trying to give back to the community," he said. 

It comes as both the Yale School of Music and the trombone, band, and orchestral communities more broadly navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the summer, hundreds of symphonies announced seasons with virtual programming and smaller concerts, streamed solo performances, or no concerts at all (the New Haven Symphony Orchestra was among the virtual programming camp; CEO Elaine Carroll has said musicians would need multiple football fields to practice safely).

In July, Science Magazine published an article suggesting that practicing instruments together, particularly indoors without ventilation, poses significant risk to musicians. Researchers from the University of Maryland and University of Colorado have run a number of tests on particle aerosolization, including a trombone with varying levels of covering. The results suggested that instruments can indeed spread COVID-19, just as singing did at multiple choir rehearsals around the globe earlier this year. 

Monday, the specter of the pandemic was omnipresent, but never deafening. Audience members sat masked in the grass and on nearby benches, their polite applause more common than the few whoops and cheers that dotted the crowd. Almost everyone remained at least six feet apart, save family "pods" and couples. Kids danced with their parents and ran across the grass, several wearing bright, miniature fabric masks. When musicians tiptoed into a brassy version of Smash Mouth, a few listeners squealed  and laughed with delight. 

Murray said he sees the concerts as not just benefitting listeners, but also the players, who spend hours playing music in their homes and in front of screens. Monday, A toddler in sparkly shoes in a purple, gauzy tutu turned Carmen's "All By Myself" into a short dance solo. A jogger ran through the space just as the group switched into "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" from Mulan, pulling a face covering up over his mouth. A breeze rustled through the space and made the trees look as though they were dancing. 

"We really appreciate being able to play for an audience," Muray said. "We play for ourselves all the time—especially, like, by ourselves for the past six months. It's been rough. But it's been nice to be able to play for us."

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