Born in Weyburn, Canada in 1956, RICHARD CARSON STEUART has performed professionally as both a classical and jazz soloist since the age of 10. At 63, he continues to enjoy astoundingly robust health and a diverse musical career, now spanning more than five decades!
Besides the famous French trumpet virtuoso, Maurice André, Richard Carson Steuart is the only winner of both of the world’s most prestigious trumpet competitions: the German – ARD, International Radio and Television Classical Music Competition (held every six years in Munich) and the Swiss – STR “Concours L’Exécution de Musique Genève” / International Radio and Television Music Competition (which was held in Geneva and now no longer exists). He is, as well, the winner of the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) Modern Music Festival Prize awarded every two years at the Munich “Biennale”. This international modern music festival was headed at that time by the recently deceased, internationally acclaimed composer, Hans Werner Hense. All three of these early career achievements (from 1980, 1981, and 1990 respectively) most clearly demonstrate Mr. Steuart’s Artistic Niveau as well as his musical diversity as a world class solo trumpeter.
This past July (2019) Richard Carson Steuart performed as Featured Concert Artist as well as Master Class Lecturer at the International Trumpet Guild / “ITG” Conference which took place in Miami FL, USA.. This was the third time he had been honoured by an invitation to perform a full concert recital for the ITG at an international conference, having previously performed at the international conferences in Manchester, England in 2005 and for the very first Canadian ITG Conference,which took place in 2008 in Banff AB.
Steuart has, as well, been lecturer, ensemble leader and featured soloist in three other very special combined European Trumpet Guild (ETG) and International Trumpet Guild (ITG) conferences. The first two were in Bad Saeckingen, Germany in 2000 and 2001, organized by his colleague and friend Dr. Dr. Edward H. Tarr (USA. and Germany) and the third he personally hosted and sponsored for both the ETG and ITG. This took place in 2003 at the Julius Echter University in Würzburg, Germany where he has taught since 1983, personally inviting soloists, ensembles and lecturers from Japan, the USA, England, France, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, the Ukraine and Russia, while commissioning new solo and ensemble works from various international composers which were premiered at that special event.
While still in Canada, Richard Carson Steuart won his first National Competition at age 11, performing amongst other works, the Classical Concerto of Johann Nepomuck Hummel. In 1970, at the unheard of age of 14 years and while still attending high school, he began to teach at the college/university level, having received his first teaching assistantship to the American hornist and concert pianist, Dr. Mel Carey of Berklee CA, then Head of the Brass Department at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus. That same year, Richard Steuart performed the Haydn Trumpet Concerto and Handel’s “The Messiah” in the Westminster Abbey in London, England with the Inter-collegiate Symphony Orchestra as Soloist, and Assistant Conductor to Lloyd Blackamnn. In 1971, then age 15, he accepted the position of Solo Trumpet with the Regina Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for five years.
A more complete description of Mr. Steuart’s earliest musical studies and early professional career in Canada may well be inspiring for both aspiring young musicians and interesting for the parents of “gifted” students alike; this can be read on his website, www.latrombamusic.com.
It began at age 20, when he performed as both featured Recital-Soloist in the summer of 1976 at the Banff Summer School of the Arts in Banff AB, and this for live national radio and television solo recital broadcasts as well as in the function of orchestral solo-trumpeter performing with the Canadian Chamber Orchestra under the world-famous American composer and conductor, Aaron Copland. That same year, Steuart won First Prize at the Canadian National Music Festival for ‘All Brass Instruments,’ flying between radio concerts to Toronto ON to compete, and as well won First Prize in the National CBC, Radio and Television Competition for All Orchestral Wind-Instruments. That same year he also received the first of three consecutive Canadian National “Arts Council Awards,” with which he began his three years of selective international master-class studies, beginning in the fall of 1976.
He then journeyed to Philadelphia, competed for one of only four study positions, and was awarded a full four year scholarship to the famous Curtis Institute of Music. (Curtis was regarded the top music school in the USA at that time, and is still regarded by many to be one the best schools for music in the world today.) There he studied briefly with Frank Kaderabek, then Solo Trumpet of Eugene Ormandy’s Philadelphia Orchestra, since he had already been awarded a Full “Masters” Scholarship at Yale University by Robert Nagel of the New York Brass Quintet. Steuart decided instead to journey in the spring of 1977 to Chicago to study at the North West University with Vincent Chicowitz of the Chicago Symphony. In the spring of 1978, he moved to New York to study with Mel Broiles of the Metropolitan Opera, and then traveled to Europe in the summer of 1978 as the Solo Trumpeter of the World Youth Orchestra. Thereafter, he continued his Master-Class studies with Philip Jones, then Solo Trumpeter of London Orchestra. Sir Jones was, as well, Principal of the Trinity College in London, and founder of the world-famous Philp Jones Brass Ensemble, and in the September of 1978, advised Richard Steuart to end his private Master-Class studies with Rolf Quinque, then Solo Trumpeter of Munich Philharmonic and Professor at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, Germany.
In November of 1978, Steuart won his first major European Orchestral position, becoming the Solo-Trumpeter of the “German Opera on the Rhein” in Dusseldorf. Three months later, in February of 1979, he was offered the position of 1. Solo Trumpeter with the World Touring Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Eugen Jochun, the founder of the Bavarian State Radio Symphony Orchestra. He held this position with the Bamberger Symphoniker until the winter season/semester of 1983/1984 when, with the expressed support of the Bavarian Ministry of Culture, an “Artist in Residence” position was created for him at the Herman Zilcher Conservatory of Music in Wuerzburg. Here Steuart assumed a wide range of teaching responsibilities from the Renaissance, Baroque and classical music idioms to modern big-band and contemporary jazz ensemble. Eventually, also modern classical and even electronic and experimental (so called “Neue”) music.
In September 2001 he was further appointed to a tenured position on the Faculty of the Bavarian State University of Musical Arts (Hochschule fuer Musik) in Wuerzburg, as “Teacher for Special Musical Events,” where he continues to enjoy teaching.
Richard Carson Steuart also tours internationally, performing and recording both historical and contemporary music for radio and television on both period and modern instruments, many of his own design and manufacture. He has performed for Prince Charles in the “Proms Concerts” in the Royal Albert Hall and with his Munich Brass Ensemble for such high-profile events as the first G7/8 Conference, performing specific works, some newly written and some specially arranged for each of the heads of the free world, including the American President George W. Bush; Russian Federation President Boris Yelsin; the Prime Minister of Great Britain, John Majors; and President of France, Francois Mitterrand, among others.
Steuart has performed and recorded well over 30 solo and chamber music CDs for his own German-based La Tromba ® Music Productions recording company (since 1989) and continues to produce ensemble and solo CDs.
He has recorded for numerous international record labels, including RCA-London; EMI- Electrola, Cologne; Audite- Stuttgart; Orfeo- Munich; Koch-International and MMO-New York, as well for the radio and television studios of several European states such as Bavarian Radio and Television in Munich, South West German Radio/TV in Karlsruhe, Saarbrucken, Baden Baden, Stuttgart, Basel, Bern, Nuremberg, Lubliana, Linz, etc., etc.
Over more than 50 years of his professional musical career, Richard Carson Steuart has performed not only as both a symphonic solo-trumpeter and chamber ensemble soloist, ensemble conductor and leader, but as well has been a featured soloist and recording artist with diverse pop, rock, big band, brass bands, symphonic concert bands, and brass ensembles of all sizes, and this for live concerts as well as CDs, videos, radio and television throughout Europe. He has been featured soloist in diverse European and Hollywood feature film productions that were recorded in Europe (Germany, the Ukraine Bulgaria, Hungary) including those involving Oscar prize winners Hans Zimmer of Germany/USA and Michel Le Grand of France.
Steuart still finds time to regularly organize concerts, courses, competitions and master classes from Baroque to modern jazz throughout Europe, the Ukraine and Russia for his European Brass Academy.
Steuart is active as arranger and composer, and as co-founder of the German Brass Ensemble, being the original solo trumpeter of that world-acclaimed quintet and later large brass ensemble, performing with them from 1979-1987.
He is the founder and current musical director of the Munich Brass Ensemble (since 1983), the Schedule Kammersolisten/German Chamber Soloists String Orchestra (since 1989) and the European Baroque Soloists (since 1991), and in 1999 he founded the Prince Bishop of Wuerzburg’s Wind Ensemble, an 18-member brass ensemble which includes 8 trumpets (from piccolo to bass trumpet) 3 trombones, 3 horns, 2 tubas, timpani and percussion, with which he performs music from the Renaissance to the modern idioms on historical as well as modern instruments.
Steuart continues to be a sought-after instrumental design consultant, having cooperated for over four decades with firms including Michael Muenkwitz, Rostock and Herman Laetsch, Bremen; mouthpiece makers: Josef Klier and Josef Hablowitz in Diespeck Germany; Yamaha Musical Instruments in Tokyo and Hamamatzu Japan, and with Zigmand Kanstul Musical Instruments in Anaheim CA, USA.
Steuart is a proud member of the AFM and is equally proud that as of July 2019, a 50 year “Member in Good Standing” of that American Federation of Musician Local 446, joining in 1969 specifically to play as ensemble member and soloist with the then-still-touring Ringling Bros. – Barum and Bailey’s “Greatest Show on Earth” Circus Band at the Exhibition Auditorium in Regina.
While still working as orchestral solo trumpet in Canada he considered himself to be very fortunate to perform under and record with conductors as diverse as Arthur Fielder (Boston Pops) in Regina; George Tintner (Australia/Austria) with the National Youth Rochester in Toronto; with Kazuyoshi Akiyama (Tokyo, Japan) with the NYO in Vancouver; and Aaron Copland (USA) in Banff with the Canadian Chamber Orchestra.
From 1978 in Europe he worked with, among others, Jinn Wang (Shanghai China/Vienna, Austria); Witold Rowitzski (Warsaw, Poland); Lawrence Foster (USA/Monaco); Aldo Ciccato and Giuseppe Patané (Germany/Italy); Gary Bertini, Loren Maazel, Christopf Eschenbach(Germany and USA.), Eugen Jochun (Germany/Austria), Michael Gielan (Austria), Horst Stein (Switzerland) as well as Oscar Prize winners Michel Le Grand (France) and Hans Zimmer (USA/Germany).
Steuart has officially performed and represented the Canadian Government in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Russia, performing for the Ambassadors, General Consuls of Germany, Switzerland and the Russian Federation. In this capacity he has been a Keynote Speaker and Performing Lecturer in the Peter the Great Museum in St. Petersburg, and for the Mackenzie Lyon King Canadian Governmental Cultural Exchange Programme.
He has been active in the promotion of artistic trumpet performance and advanced musical study, a key goal of the ITG itself. To this end he has, during his entire career, been a continuing champion of both modern-classical and innovative popular music, regularly commissioning, producing, premiering, and/or conducting numerous solo and ensemble works, both for live concerts and recordings in Canada, America, Russia, China, the Czech Republic, France, England, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the Ukraine, Russia, Slovenia, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria and Italy, while at the same time actively promoting and supporting the specific contemporary composers from each of these respective countries and donating musical instruments and accessories.
Since his earliest beginning as solo cornetist at age 11 with the Regina City Police Boys Band, as member of The Royal Canadian Legion Band, the Salvation Army Brass Band (Regina Citedal) and University of Saskatchewan Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Big Band, Richard Steuart been especially active in community-oriented activities. Mr. Steuart has been involved with diverse private organizations in both Canada and Europe, including the International Rotary, Lions and Shriners Clubs since his early career, as well as for specifically selected private persons seen to be financially, educationally or socially disadvantaged. He continues to accept and embrace his responsibilities to the community in which he lives and the society to which he belongs, through the organization of diverse benefit concerts in other venues: cathedrals, churches, synagogues, public and concert halls, with the proceeds going to institutions such as Cap Anamor, Doctors without Borders, Caritas, Children of the Train Stations in Romania for the victims of the radioactive fallout of Chernobyl, as well as for the victims of war and natural disaster in Syria and Yemen, as well as for manmade catastrophies.
Over his more than 50-year musical career he has gained a truly broad spectrum musical experience and firsthand knowledge of very high-quality professional music making, which he gladly and freely passes on to his students in Germany and, in the capacity of guest professor, to his international colleagues and their students throughout the world.
Richard Carson Steuart is a practising Christian and the father of four healthy children: Tara, Sina, Kevin and Sean, all now in their adult years, and considers himself through them to be especially blessed in his life. He is sincerely grateful for his long and successful career and the fact that he himself enjoys the best of health.
Inside the November 2020 issue of Forte you’ll find a little member news from our local, a spotlight on member Tenille Arts, President’s report, Regina Symphony Orchestra update, MPTF update and more. Click below to launch or download the PDF version.
Regina Musicians Association 