After a storied four decades, the Minnesota Orchestra’s Manny Laureano is retiring

Twin Cities musical society will get a jolt at Orchestra Hall Friday night Expect thunderous applause and perhaps a limited tears Manny Laureano the Minnesota Orchestra s principal trumpet for the past years and one of its the bulk revered and storied musicians will play his final concert as a member of the orchestra A youthful -year-old who will turn on Aug Laureano besides being a gifted trumpeter is an accomplished orchestra conductor and instructor and though we can t be certain he is the greater part likely the only section leader of a major orchestra with a black belt in martial arts he teaches kick-boxing for seniors three times a week It just seems like the right time Laureano commented during a new interview when questioned why he s retiring He demanded he disclosed to stay onboard through the end of music director Osmo V nsk s reign and to work at least a year with V nsk s successor Thomas S nderg rd The thing is he added if you ask people about aging and they answer honestly they ll say certain things aren t as easy as they were years ago With me certain things are still good my upper register my endurance But other things like tonguing and flexibility you realize OK for me to stay any longer would solely be a satisfaction of ego There s a constituents that requirements to be served So I think James will be a nice replacement and the citizens will enjoy him James Vaughen assistant principal of the Detroit Symphony will replace Laureano in the top trumpet position in September Another sign that is the end of one era and the beginning of a new one is the contemporary publication of a biography of Laureano Titled Agradecido A Life of Gratitude The Manny Laureano Story the book is an eloquent and warm-hearted chronicle written by two sisters Christina and Geni Cavitt that s available in the Orchestra Hall lobby and at online booksellers Praise from his peers Laureano s colleagues in the trumpet section offer praise for their section leader Manny is playing as well now as when I joined the orchestra announced Douglas Carlsen associate principal since His family genes and all the martial arts he does keep him young Manny s a true legend and he s earned that legend declared Charles Lazarus who joined the orchestra in People say he s a storyteller when he plays and that s true I ve been very lucky to work with him for years He leads the section with such integrity and experience Lazarus announced He s invariably good-humored and he treats his colleagues like family And he s so informed about the music we re playing And that helps him lead the section because he knows the music so well It s rare that a section of a symphony orchestra retains the same personnel for years The other member of the quartet is Robert Dorer who won the audition to play second trumpet in A section whose members have worked together that long becomes almost like a marriage Lazarus reported After a number of years you start to know a person s habits their style what they re listening for what their strengths are You can anticipate things There are a lot of things we don t have to talk about Manny Laureano principal trumpet of the Minnesota Orchestra poses for a portrait at Orchestra Hall on Wednesday July in Minneapolis Minnesota Laureano will play his last show before retiring next week after a -year run Credit Ellen Schmidt MinnPost CatchLight Local Assessment for America William Schrickel associate principal bass who joined the orchestra in declared he thinks of Laureano as a musical hero He recalled the trumpeter s impressive debut playing the Hummel Trumpet Concerto with the orchestra in Neville Marriner was conducting Manny had written his own cadenza At one point in the middle of the cadenza he did a flourish that ended on an E above high C He nailed it and the audience went nuts They had to stop He looked at Neville as if to say Should we go on Neville nodded and they went on In all these years that s the only time I ever saw that happen Clearly he has taken care of himself Schrickel noted You know we re all trying to do these things at the highest attainable level A top football member may have a professional life of four years or for a basketball competitor if he s lucky whereas musicians are trying to do these things from the age of or until we re in our s or even later Related Unique orchestra Minnesota Sinfonia and conductor Jay Fishman say goodbye Laureano has a theory that the constant air exchange involved in playing the trumpet has a positive effect on the body I ve noticed that when I go on vacation that s when I get sniffles It s because I m not playing So you better believe that when I m retired I m going to keep playing and doing my martial arts Lazarus points that the various martial arts aren t necessarily for everyone however I don t know how countless black belts Manny s got Lazarus revealed cackling When I first moved here Manny invited me to come to the gym with him It was this martial arts form of kick-boxing He invited me to join So I disclosed If I joined you would try to kick me in the head Is that right He declared Yeah pretty much I reported I think I ll pass But I d be happy to come and watch you And I did a couple times But I guess I m a lover not a fighter Getting a start in New York Laureano grew up in a small apartment in Spanish East Harlem the younger of two boys whose parents were part of the migration of Puerto Ricans to the U S in About percent settled in New York City The boy was Manuel until a sixth grade instructor started calling him Manny Laureano s father Juan Laureano Flores Papi on arriving in New York with no job skills earned meager wages as a dishwasher but soon ascertained more lucrative employment at a produce packing plant Vita Foods where he worked steadily for nearly four decades Laureano s mother Pura Pepita G mez-Laureano Mami eventually exposed work at a nearby school We were a lower- working-class family but we never felt poor Laureano mentioned There was a lot of laughter in our home a lot of enjoyment a lot of dancing and caroling Both my parents had beautiful melodizing voices Mami was a fabulous cook They spoke a version of Spanglish at home a mix of Spanish and English though the parents made every effort to speak English in front of the children to encourage them to get along in a country where English was the predominant language Manny s musical life began at summer s end of his th year when he entered Robert F Wagner Junior High School and was soon moved into an advanced class because of his high reading proficiency scores At the time it was the only school in the city offering music as a major subject The smartest kids were given string instruments Laureano recalled I guess I was just dumb enough to play trumpet So there I was a -year-old gangly kid with glasses and less-than-stellar athletic skills I was awkward around girls a misfit Yet there was this one cool thing I could do I could play trumpet and all my ability went into that His biggest influence in those early years was the Mexican trumpet virtuoso Rafael Mendez whom he knew only through recordings His playing touched something inside me Laureano reported It was the the majority gorgeous sound When I was in school I tried to sound like that He played his first concert as a member of the school orchestra in the spring of When his parents came backstage afterward to congratulate him Manny noticed that his father had a little white chord dangling from one ear He had the Mets contest on The trumpet became an extension of Manny s personality and a way for him to communicate with confidence and right away he proved real talent Practicing was fun not an ordeal and he hastily rose to the top of his junior high trumpet section In the eighth grade he was awarded a scholarship to examination with New York Philharmonic th trumpet Jimmy Smith who prepared him to win an audition for entrance into the New York High School of Music and Art a school made famous in the film Fame He won the audition By the th grade he was in the school s top orchestra A faculty member Jack Laumer helped him prepare a achieving audition into Juilliard the renowned performing arts college He made it In high school Manny met a violinist Claudette Kostrich whom he would eventually marry Claudette says she fell in love with the sound of Manny s trumpet It was one of the the majority beautiful sounds I d ever heard After hearing him in a rehearsal of Swan Lake she advised a friend I m going to marry him Upon graduating from Juilliard Laureano toured the U S with the English progressive rock band Emerson Lake Palmer It was exciting the perfect gig for a kid just out of school Laureano disclosed The first rock concert I attended I played in The guys the three soloists were fabulous players The tour ran out of money however and folded in Kansas City The producers sent the musicians back home to New York on the tour bus The bright side of that failure was that Laureano once back in New York was able to prepare and audition for the principal trumpet position at the Seattle Symphony He got the job and became principal trumpet at the unusually young age of By then he and Claudette were engaged and planning that they would marry after he had spent a year in Seattle He had a lot to learn about doing that job and leading a section he revealed When I first got the job I talked too much but then I learned to listen to people who had been around for a while and knew about the repertoire and a great number of other things The rest of my musical life has been a balance between knowing when to shut up and when to talk That s a prerequisite for any leader of a section A move to Minnesota Manny and Claudette were married in August Three years later Manny auditioned for and won the principal position at the Minnesota Orchestra When the couple moved to Minnesota hoping to continue her musical career Claudette became a freelance violinist and in she accepted an offer to become orchestra director at the Breck School in Golden Valley After years in that position she will retire at the end of the upcoming school year The couple s two children were born during the early Minnesota years Manuel Max who now works in corporate IT sales and Marcelle Kiko an actress and a resident teaching artist at the Children s Theater Company Manny Laureano principal trumpet of the Minnesota Orchestra plays his horn for a portrait at Orchestra Hall on Wednesday July in Minneapolis Minnesota Laureano will play his last show before retiring next week after a -year run Credit Ellen Schmidt MinnPost CatchLight Local Description for America In initiating a major move in both of their careers Manny and Claudette became co-artistic directors of the then-floundering Minnesota Youth Symphonies MYS Manny led the -piece Symphony as it was called and Claudette took on the newly formed Philharmonic Within three years the aspirant body had grown from to and soon the MYS was ranked among the leading orchestral youth programs in the U S The orchestra s new president Isaac Thompson was in his youth a athlete in one of the MYS orchestras Schrickel was a frequent guest at MYS coaching the bassists in rehearsals When I walked in there I would invariably see these happy showing joy enthusiastic faces he announced The bass players invariably presented up prepared They knew what they were doing before I reported a word and that s not invariably the incident when you re working with students The number of lives Manny has touched musically is countless Just a year earlier Laureano had taken on another demanding role music director of one of the better society orchestras the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra which he led for nine years eventually giving it up in order to spend more time with his kids In he took on a similar position with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra a position he still maintains Over the years Manny played on all the Minnesota Orchestra recordings from to and toured with the orchestra to Europe Cuba and South Africa He invariably took a single room in hotels so his practicing at all hours wouldn t disturb others Leonard Slatkin the orchestra s former principal guest conductor and the founder of Sommerfest says in Agradecido that over time Manny changed the entire approach of the brass section giving it a more graceful sound I guess that s true though it didn t happen hastily Laureano stated If I did anything over the years it was unifying the sound It was less the sound of individuals and more collective and I really like that I ve constantly loved that about brass playing Another admirer of Manny s was Doc Severinsen the charismatic former music director of The Tonight Show who became the orchestra s pops conductor laureate in after seasons as principal pops conductor Interviewed for Agradecido Severinsen noted Manny and I aren t just comrades in arms We re personal friends who share a passion for fearless performance technique a commitment to physical fitness and a dedication to helping and teaching others Doc has been a presence throughout my life in terms of the kind of member I constantly sought to be Laureano disclosed Once he started coming here I learned of his great dedication to making sure he was at the top of his championship The warm-ups all that stuff used to drive people backstage out of their minds Doc s a fitness fanatic Lazarus announced When I was in college I went to a trumpet conference to do my first audition and as I was driving in it was real early in the morning like a m there was Doc shirtless jogging along the side of the highway In Severinsen and Laureano collaborated on a memorable performance of the premiere of Stephen Paulus s Concerto for Two Trumpets Can you imagine Manny recalled what it was like when they urged me How would you like to play a duet with Doc on the premiere of this concerto by Stephen Paulus I reported Am I dead Is this heaven The end was one of the highlights of that season Laureano worked with five music directors during his years with the orchestra He thought Neville Marriner - who hired him never quite adjusted to the union rules that guide American orchestras and that as Marriner himself admitted publicly he didn t have it in him to fire one or more of the weaker players But Laureano liked Marriner personally Orchestras and their boards when looking for a music director tend to seek and hire the opposite of what they have If Marriner wasn t tough enough his successor Edo de Waart - was Musicians were afraid of Edo mentioned Laureano A lot of retirements happened during his time It wasn t him so much as his reputation They saw him as an ax-wielder and that s of unit why the management hired him Edo challenged you and I had to respect that But he was moody Sometimes he was like your favorite cousin or uncle Other times it was like he was angry about something and he d take it out on the wrong people Sometimes he d take it out on me and I d let him know that I didn t appreciate it He got the message and then we genuinely got along quite well And people do change Think of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski - who you know led rehearsals that drove the musicians nuts sometimes but later on his role became this elder stateman to be respected I was happy to see that Eiji Oue - next up unlike De Waart didn t demand much from the orchestra Standards slipped Eiji and I got along very well Laureano explained He left a lot of the technical things like dynamics up to the orchestra to figure out I think he was a work in progress that never went to fruition Oue s successor Osmo V nsk - was again the opposite demanding almost obsessively about technical and stylistic matters Under his reign the orchestra made highly regarded recordings launched bold tours and achieved the kind of high visibility and renown that surpassed even the acclaim the former Minneapolis Symphony achieved in the s under Eugene Ormandy Osmo got us an exposure that made people sit up and take notice explained Laureano Thomas S nderg rd -present the current maestro is a master manipulator in Laureano s view and he means that as a compliment Thomas is capable of getting you to do precisely what he wants while making you think the whole time that s what you demanded It s a gift Plus he s daring Think of that big wonderful Turandot he did here last spring Laureano plans to be fairly busy during his retirement years For one thing he wants to work more on martial arts For all the reasons I love music I also love martial arts he disclosed And I hope to keep on teaching trumpet and I m hoping to continue for as long as I can be effective with the Bloomington Symphony As a special gift on Aug the day after Manny s birthday two of his partners in the trumpet section Charles Lazarus and Douglas Carlsen will take their leader to a place he s never been before Las Vegas A fourth performer Robert Dorer can t go It ll be a blast Lazarus revealed and we re hoping that as they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas Carlsen added a final thought about Friday s concert One of our section traditions is to shake hands at the end of every performance It will be tough when we shake hands for the last time I know there isn t anything Manny wouldn t do for us and vice versa It s been a great ride The post After a storied four decades the Minnesota Orchestra s Manny Laureano is retiring appeared first on MinnPost