Trailblazing trombonist Megumi Kanda takes the spotlight in Milwaukee Symphony program

In a typical Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert, principal trombonist Megumi Kanda is in the back with the other brass players.

But in Tan Dun's "Three Muses in Video Game," the trombone is the hero. That delights Kanda, who has been one of the MSO's bright lights since arriving in Milwaukee in 2002.

The MSO will perform Tan's trombone concerto June 7-9 at the Bradley Symphony Center. This powerhouse program also includes Orff's popular choral extravaganza "Carmina Burana."

Tan Dun really understands how versatile the trombone is, Kanda said in a recent interview.

"He really, really captured what we're capable of," she said. "We can sound crazy, we can sound heroic, we can sound groovy, we can sound beautiful."

Doubling down on the trombone's versatility, Kanda said "recording engineers always complain that we're really hard to record because we have such a wide range of expression."

In her mind, composers are still catching up to the power of her instrument: "Not too many trombone concertos out there," she said. (Kanda premiered Geoffrey Gordon's trombone concerto with the MSO in 2011.) After being invited to perform one for this season, Kanda was casting about when she found a one-minute clip of Tan's "Three Muses," which principal trombonist Jörgen van Rijen and Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra premiered in 2021.

"Just love at first sight," she said. "I listened to one minute, and I said, 'I don't care what the rest of the piece is, I'm playing.'"

There's loving what Tan composed, and then there's describing the sound, which is trickier.

Kanda said her husband, MSO French horn player Dietrich Hemann, walked in when she was first listening to it and asked, "What is this, Chinese Hollywood?" She found that an apt analogy: Tan won both an Oscar and a Grammy for his score for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

The "Three Muses" of the title refer to three traditional Chinese musical instruments: the xiqin (a bowed string instrument that's a forerunner of the erhu), the bili (akin to an oboe) and the sheng (a mouth organ). The composer asks the trombonist to play sounds similar to these ancient instruments, Kanda explained. Those instruments can bend pitches, but so can the trombone, Kanda said, noting that Tan frequently calls for glissandi in the concerto.

She appreciates the concerto's Chinese roots

While Kanda is Japanese, she feels a personal cultural connection to the Chinese roots of Tan Dun's concerto.

"I always enjoyed studying Chinese poetry when I was in high school (in Japan)," she said. In her mind, Japanese poetry is like a bento box: "You look at the beauty of something small." She feels that Chinese poetry has a bigger-picture view. She imagines being on the Silk Road, on the back of a camel playing a Chinese instrument, missing home.

One of the movements of "Three Muses" is exactly like that, she said.

A concerto is composed to show off the qualities of an instrument and the skill of the person who plays it. So that means a concerto is deliberately difficult to perform.

Tan Dun's is no exception.

"Gosh, it's really hard," Kanda said. "You know it's trouble when you see treble clef on trombone," she said. "There are so many treble clef … sometimes you just forget that it's even a trombone (concerto) because it's like, outside of the trombone range."

When she is learning a work like this, she has two trusted people she turns to for feedback. "I play it for my husband," she said. "He has a good ear."

For a fellow trombonist's feedback, she turns to her colleague, MSO assistant principal trombonist Kirk Ferguson.

Kanda would like to see more women playing trombone

Kanda made news when she won the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra job (out of 76 contenders) in 2002: She was the only female principal trombonist in a major U.S. orchestra. She would have expected there would be more people like her by now, but progress has been slow, she said.

She makes herself visible in the music world in the hope that it will encourage younger women and girls to take up the instrument.

"I think the happiest people are in the trombone section," she said.

"We get to sing it out loud. So it's kind of a stress relief for us."

Kanda is also doing something about the paucity of works featuring classical trombonists. On a recital tour of Japan this summer, she'll be playing a new work she composed herself.

If you go

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will perform "Three Muses in Video Game," "Carmina Burana" and "Fate Conquers Now" June 7-9 at the Bradley Symphony Center, 212 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, visit mso.org or call (414) 291-7605.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tan Dun concerto will feature Milwaukee trombonist Megumi Kanda