Guest trombonist plays in Doudna Tuesday
Sandeep Kumar Danny | The Daily Eastern News
Jacob Hardy a music performance major (left), Eric Dawson (middle left) a music major and music proffesor Jemmie Robertson (right) perform with Peter Steiner Tuesday night in the recital hall at the Doudna Fine Arts Center.
January 9, 2018
When trombonist Peter Steiner arrived from Vienna, Austria, to Eastern,he had never met his accompanist, collaborative pianist Kevina Lamb, before.
Collaborative Pianist Dr.Kevina Lam and Peter Steiner bow after their performance in the recital hall Tuesday night at the Doudna Fine Arts Center.
Steiner came to the Doudna Fine Arts Center’s Recital Hall on Tuesday night, performing with both Eastern students and faculty members.
Music professor Jemmie Robertson discovered Steiner through his friend Bradley Palmer, who serves as a trombone professor at Columbus State University in Georgia.
When Palmer and Steiner collaborated on a CD, Palmer sent Robertson some clips of their work.
“I admire his musicianship in the pursuit of excellence,” said Robertson.
He decided to invite Steiner to perform at Eastern as the musician was about to embark on a tour of college campuses last year.
This year, Steiner returned to Eastern as part of a 40-college campus tour across the country.
Aside from Eastern, he will also be performing at Millikin and DePaul University.
Steiner began playing the trombone at just six years old.
“I chose the trombone because it is the loudest instrument and my mom didn’t want me to play the drums,” he said.
Peter Steiner performes in the recital hall at Doudna Fine Arts Center Tuesday night. Eastern was his first stop on his CD release tour.
Steiner decided to continue his dream of music performance at the Music Conservatory in Italy.
Then, he attended the Mozarteum Salzburg in Austria.
He then attended the Juilliard School of Music where he met Joe Alessi, a composer at Juilliard who has hosted workshops attended by Robertson.
Steiner has performed at the Vienna State Opera and works for The Thein Instrument Company, in addition to making campus tours.
Steiner’s advice for aspiring musicians is to “be curious, and keep finding interesting things.”
Steiner’s performance Tuesday featured seven tracks, only one of which was initially written for trombone.
He said the piece expressed “the classical and jazzy components of trombone very well.”
Steiner had to transcribe other pieces that were initially written for instruments like the flute to fit his own.
The performance also featured a trombone quartet performing a piece by Beethoven by the name of “Drei Equale für vier Posaunen” that included two Eastern students, Eric Dawson and Jacob Hardy.
Robertson also joined in for the quartet.
“I enjoy going on campus tours because they’re the easiest way to play as much as possible and to work with great students,” Steiner said.
Olivia Swenson-Hultz can be reached at 581-2812 or omswensonhultz@eiu.edu.
