What are some exciting projects coming up in the future?
I recently released a new album as part of my pandemic project, in conjunction with my Body Mind Spirit Workshops. I had several new pieces commissioned for my first album and ended up over-commissioning. I loved all of the pieces, and they all turned out great, so I decided I could record a second album. So now, I have two albums of all-new works. The latest album has a unifying concept, and it’s called For the Beauty of the Earth, based on the hymn-tune. Throughout the album, you hear the hymn in different ways. For me, it’s all about gratitude. During the heights of the pandemic, everyone has gone through some challenging moments where it was hard to find gratitude. Yet, I wanted to keep fighting for gratitude in those moments and remind myself and people to have gratitude. I recorded the album in December 2020, and I did all of the editing and mixing myself; it was an enriching process. I decided that I did not want to make money with this album, so I decided to give it away for free. People can use the code “Gratitude” in my online store for a free digital version of the album.
As far as upcoming projects, I will be recording a third album over the winter. I have even more music that I’ve commissioned. Much of the music for trombone came out of the Paris Conservatory, then another wave of music was written in the 90s and 2000s. I have solely been responsible for commissioning about twenty-five new works for the trombone over the last five years. I also have an ongoing standard repertoire project on YouTube. Within the past year, I have thought more about fairness and social justice regarding representation and inclusivity of those things in music. I started finding pieces that had not been played by composers of underrepresented minorities. There exists a beautiful body of music by those underrepresented composers, so that has been a wonderful and rewarding project for me. So, I have been recording those pieces and including them as standard repertoire.
The Body Mind Spirit Workshops have been successful as well. We have been doing several online intensive courses. We have had over 100 people go through the method, and we’ve done six workshops in the last year. We have several students and professionals. The workshop we had a few weeks ago mainly consisted of non-trombone players, which was excellent. My partner, Karen, focuses on mental health and emotional intelligence; she’s a certified enneagram and life coach. So, we do yoga and breathing and all sorts of activities where nobody has to play. We talk and build community and give people tools to make better music and build better music careers. Of course, people can find me via Jeremy Wilson trombone on my website, YouTube and Facebook.
Website: jeremywilsonmusic.com
YouTube: Jeremy Wilson
Facebook: @jeremywilsontrombone
Instagram: @jeremywilsontrombone