Review

Owen Underhill
Trombone Walking:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2010 / 2024
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Solo score

Primary Genre: Solo Tenor Trombone - unaccompanied

Trombone Walking is a work for solo trombone by composer Owen Underhill wherein the performer is meant to walk while performing the composition. It is approximately five minutes in length and may either be memorized or performed with the assistance of a lyre. As indicated in the score, the work is a “slow, stately processional” with a marked tempo of 54 bpm. The work is generally lyrical in character; however, there are a handful of urgently articulated and arpeggiated moments of contrast. Additionally, the latter portion features three brief passages that utilize multiphonics. The composer includes optional transpositions of the trombone and voice parts to accommodate performers of varying vocal ranges. The register of the trombone part is generally conservative; that said, there is one two-bar passage early in the work in tenor clef which briefly ascends to a d2 (which could be transposed 8vb to accommodate younger players); aside from that moment, the highest indicated pitch is an a1. Additionally, there are no low register demands below the bass clef staff, and the lowest indicated pitch is an A-flat.

Trombone Walking was premiered by Jeremy Berkman at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver on January 23rd, 2010, and was “originally written as part of a larger site-specific collaboration with dance called Imprint.” Trombone Walking is a welcome addition to our unaccompanied trombone literature and would be suitable for performance in a variety of recital settings.