Sterling Maffe: Hollywood Concerto for Bass Trombone

For Bass Trombone and Fixed Media, Orchestra, or Band. 20 minutes. 

I first collaborated with Ilan during my undergraduate years on a solo trombone piece we recorded together called Aficionado. We kept in touch over the years and often talked about the possibility of a full concerto, and this project finally gave us the chance to make that a reality. The Hollywood Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra, first conceived for symphony orchestra and later adapted for concert band by Sebastian Quesada, is a piece is in three movements: the first, Maestoso, introduces the main thematic DNA of the concerto, centered on a melody I originally wrote during my master’s degree at USC for a class rescore of a scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The assignment was to replace John Williams’s original score for the scene, and in doing so I wrote a theme I loved but never had the chance to
share outside the classroom. Revisiting it here allowed me to give that music new life in a much larger and more expressive form. The second, Adagio, grew out of a simple piano theme I improvised one evening for my wife, shortly after we were married, and it became the lyrical heart of the concerto. The third, Vivace, actually has its roots in an earlier piece called Little Picture—a short work for bass trombone and fixed media that I originally wrote for Ilan to
perform at the International Trombone Festival in Salt Lake City. After it received strong reactions from colleagues, we both felt it deserved to expand into a larger context, and it ultimately became the foundation for the concerto’s finale. For me, the work reflects both the expressive depth and the vibrant energy of the bass trombone, and it has been a joy to shape this concerto in collaboration with Ilan. - Sterling Maffe