S02E13 - Denson Paul Pollard

Denson Paul Pollard, Bass Trombonist of the MET Opera Orchestra,
talked with us about his most recent sabbatical leave to play
with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Helsinki Finland. He took
the audition after spending a few weeks playing with the
orchestra, taking the risk along with 50 other bass trombonists
he won the audition. The year was a superb experience, he talked
about how the culture in Finland values and supports the arts,
and how his experience of auditioning again gave him the
opportunity to validate what he tells his students at Juilliard,
Bard and Mannes. We talked about; the difference between European
and American Conservatory student’s learning focus, what did he
learn about himself going through the process of auditioning, the
struggle of maintaining the excellent of performance in the MET
orchestra given the demands of the schedule, demands of playing
the trombone, the learning curve in learning the repertoire, how
he relaxes away from his job, the rationale of his youtube
channel examples, his exploration of new repertoire, how he
learned the bass trombone and what lays ahead in the
future.