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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And now Capital Chat on KINY, where we connect you with Juneau and Southeast Alaska's community organizations only on KINY.
Speaker 2:KINY Juno Clifton is here. Joining me is Foster Rushton. He's a clarinetist. Is that the way I say that? Foster?
Speaker 2:Okay. With the Juno Symphony, plays with, Taco Winds. He's part of, Lena's Music Academy. And Todd Hunt, who's a conductor, musical director, composer, and a huge part of Juno's musical community. Foster, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And, Todd, great to see you again. Yeah. Likewise. So tell me, first of all, the the competition that Foster won and and why we get to enjoy a little bit of live music here today.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. So the the Taku Winds is, well, Juno's local wind ensemble, part of the Juno community bands that comprises like the marching band and the Taku Winds and the Reindeer Band and all kinds of opportunities for folks in the community to play, decided this year that they wanted to put on a concerto competition, specifically for high school students. And so this is the first year of that. And well, what a concerto competition is, maybe I can go into that. Sure.
Speaker 4:So a concerto is basically kind of a generic term, but also a fairly specific term sometimes for an instrument playing a solo piece with a large ensemble, like an orchestra or a band or something. And of course, those are kind of hard to come by sometimes because it's not something that happens all that often, especially for high school and younger age folks. So they decided to give this a go and had nice little turnout, and and Foster was the lucky winner.
Speaker 2:Congratulations. Thank you. Very cool. Now I I mentioned that you're part of the Juno Symphony. Yes.
Speaker 2:I forgot to mention that you're in high school, which is an incredible accomplishment. First of all, tell me tell me where the passion for the clarinet, started.
Speaker 3:Well, so, actually, when I started music and band, I started on the trumpet in fifth grade. And then in sixth grade with COVID, there was no band program. When I went back to school in middle school in seventh grade, I also played the trumpet and the euphonium, but that's when I had a bunch of friends who played the clarinet. So I ended up asking for a clarinet for my birthday that year, and then I've played clarinet since then.
Speaker 2:And what grade are you in?
Speaker 3:I'm a junior in high school.
Speaker 2:Okay. And school's almost done. How are feeling about that?
Speaker 3:Pretty good.
Speaker 2:I I I I'm trying to get my head around the fact that that you're in high school and part of the Juno Symphony. I mean, cracking that level of expertise is truly remarkable. How long have you been performing with them?
Speaker 3:This is my first season. So
Speaker 2:since October. Okay. So describe for me then, you're sitting on that stage with all of these musicians looking out at this, you know, sold out crowd. What's going through your head at that moment?
Speaker 3:I really just think about how lucky I am because unlike there are some places that have youth symphonies, but those are very big towns. And because we don't have the numbers to do it here, it's amazing that I'm able to play in the Juno Symphony and that the spot opened at the time it did, and I was available to audition. And just playing with this level of orchestra is definitely different than playing in school bands, and it just makes me feel very lucky.
Speaker 2:Who would you say are the musicians, teachers, mentors that have kind of, you know, helped you along the way?
Speaker 3:Well, Todd has helped me prepare the auditions a lot. Catherine Kurtz has inspired me a lot to join the symphony as she's even when I was at a level two summers ago when I talked about joining the symphony for the first time where I wouldn't have at a level where I wouldn't have made it, she still like supported me to audition and encouraged me to try out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Todd, I don't wanna speak about Foster like he's not here, but mentoring a young person like this with this kind of ability. Walk me through what that experience is like.
Speaker 4:Well, it's actually really great. I love getting students that are self starters and find, say, find their own rep that they wanna play. Ones that will practice, which is great. And I have actually a really nice crop of them this year. So Foster's great.
Speaker 4:I've also got lots of others. And so I feel pretty lucky. It's also really nice once you get students that are past the, oh no, this is how you play this note stage and really start to fully develop into a musician. And you know, what really stinks is is they grow up and they graduate. Yeah.
Speaker 4:No kidding. The worst part.
Speaker 2:You know, Foster, talk to me about practicing because, I mean, I grew up playing musical instruments, never kept at it. We wanted a piano. Our home at the time wasn't big enough. My parents bought me an accordion. I played the accordion.
Speaker 2:Not a cool instrument at the time, but I love it now. And I'm curious how many how many hours a day that you you you practice to get to this level, and how many hours do you practice currently?
Speaker 3:So I often practice the most on the weekends as it enables the most time between school and other rehearsals. Most of my playing time isn't practicing. It's the rehearsals I'm involved Like the chamber concert a couple weeks ago, the symphony, the band, and just a bunch of other outside of school musical groups. But on the weekends, I practice quite a few hours just making sure I'm able to play with those groups and have the music ready
Speaker 2:to perform. Fantastic. Okay. You have your instruments. Is this what are you gonna perform for us?
Speaker 3:The cadenza of the solo that I was playing
Speaker 2:That won you at the competition? Yes. Okay. Anytime you're ready. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Very nice. We need more people applauding. But that's it. Very nice. Well, thank you so much for sharing your talent with us.
Speaker 2:You'll be performing at the Hollywood pops, part of the symphony on, June, I I would imagine. Yes. Yeah. And, it more modern music is part of the symphony. Who do you listen to now, and who do you like that's on the radio these days?
Speaker 3:I don't even know. I listen to a lot of, like, ranges of music from classical to jazz and all that. But I like to listen to a lot of John Williams because just with going on the pop scene, it's
Speaker 2:Oh, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's just amazing and I love how he uses the woodwinds to like do a bunch of quick notes to just not even play the melody with the quick notes, but add to the melody and make it more interesting than because some of these melodies, you can hear played by a middle school band. They're not hard melodies, but when you add these flourishes, they add so much texture and depth to the melodies. It makes it very hard and a professional level music and not middle school band music.
Speaker 2:Well, speaking of John Williams, are you gonna take some time off from from rehearsing and go see The Mandalorian that comes out on the the long weekend?
Speaker 3:I probably will. Yeah. I've heard of you.
Speaker 2:Todd, anything coming up with the Juno Community Band you wanna plug?
Speaker 4:Well, yeah. We've got the the concert that Foster will be playing for, and that is on June 28, I believe, which is a Sunday, I believe. That'll be in the afternoon at 03:00.
Speaker 2:Shoot us the information. Oh,
Speaker 4:yeah. Is right. Yeah. And that is at Thunder Mountain Middle School auditorium.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. And we'll continue to remind everybody about that. Todd, great to see you. Foster, congratulations. What a treat.
Speaker 2:I'll I'll be at the symphony to to watch you perform. I'm really looking forward to that.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 4:Great. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Get the latest on local events, services, and opportunities. It's all on Capital Chat, only on KINY.