“Thursday and Saturday at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Principal Trumpet Doug Prosser will open Mahler’s Symphony No. 5,” writes Jeff Spevak in Friday’s (4/14) Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.). “Twenty seconds of fanfare, when the stage is his alone, leading into a crescendo opening of what Music Director Ward Stare calls ‘the biggest thing I have ever done with this orchestra.’ … Prosser’s is a comeback story … after being silenced by a curious malady that sometimes hits brass players…. By early 1992, Prosser was in too much pain to play…. The muscle of his upper lip was torn. [After reconstructive surgery] ‘He came home and thought his career was over,’ says his wife, Hildegard Mediano…. There were two to three months of healing, followed by seven or eight months of ‘rebuilding my technique,’ he says…. In 2005, Prosser heard that the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra needed a first-chair trumpet, and [won the] audition… He [also] began teaching at the Eastman School of Music… He understands the value of staying open to a wide range of experiences. ‘I talk to my students about that too,’ he says, ‘… about growing emotionally, developmentally, as a human.’ ”
Posted April 17, 2017
