Mack, Rodney

He is a trumpeter born in New Orleans, Louisiana, who started to learn about music when he was six years old. Dubbed a trumpet prodigy, he was given classical trumpet tuition by Wynton Marsalis, who was his cousin. He went on to take further studies at the Curtis Institute of Music and gained a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center where he was the recipient of the Seiji Ozawa Award for Outstanding Musicianship during his second summer spent there.

He made his debut as a soloist with the New Orleans Symphony when he as fifteen and began to get invited to perform solos with several national and international orchestras after having been the winner of a number of competitions. The orchestras he has performed with since then have included the Barcelona Symphony as Principal Trumpet, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica de Barcelona I Nacional de Catalunya, the Richmond Symphony, the San Diego Symphony and the Tenerife Symphony. He went on to perform with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia on a trial basis for a year and was subsequently invited to be their Principal Trumpet.

In 2006 he founded The Rodney Mack Philadelphia Big Brass which is made up of musicians from several acclaimed Philadelphia Orchestras and others such as the Delaware Symphony.

A regular in the recording studios he has appeared on many albums that include his own Spirit of the Trumpeter as well as his 1998 world premiere recording of Waxman: Carmen Fantasy for Trumpet and Orchestra and other premieres such as Hailstork: Sonata for Trumpet and Pianowhich was written for Rodney and his wife, the pianist Karen Walwyn, and Singleton: In Our Own House which he performed with his wife and his cousin Branford Marsalis.

In the field of musical education he has given many masterclasses in the United States, has been requested as a teacher at the Interlochen Music Academy and the Eastern Music Festival and has been Head of the Trumpet Department at the Spanish music conservatory Escuela Superior de Musica de Catalunya.

Here’s Rodney with his Philadelphia Big Brass…

Sources:

Mack, Rodney

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