Alessi Music Studios
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2026 6:50 pm
I had a fun experience today - being a guest on a webinar for the subscribers to Joe Alessi's - Alessi Music Studio - an online learning portal.
I guess this is "shameless self-promoting" except that since I've just retired, I don't really have anything to promote! Joe had a nice idea - to have me and my successor - Gonçalo Nova each appear together on the show (outgoing and incoming Principal Trombones for the Calgary Philharmonic). Gonçalo is a really nice young man, and his playing (that I have checked out on YouTube) is spectacular! It was a nice coincidence that 45 years ago, I came to Calgary straight out of Juilliard, and now he's doing the same thing.
I would encourage anyone interested to check out Gonçalo's solo playing online - there are some great videos of the Prague Competition from a few years ago, which he won as a 19-year-old! My colleagues are in for a treat.
I also was new to the Alessi Music Studio site, and I have thoroughly enjoyed checking out the various offerings on the site over the last few days. It is a subscription service, but the fee is inexpensive, and there is a lot of good content. Now that I'm not going to have daily rehearsals and concerts, I'm going to enjoy the various play-along warm-ups and duets with Joe to keep up some skills. Anyway, I would recommend it as a good resource, and I'm not on the payroll for any portion of it. The video of today's webinar will be added to the site sometime soon.
Jim Scott
I guess this is "shameless self-promoting" except that since I've just retired, I don't really have anything to promote! Joe had a nice idea - to have me and my successor - Gonçalo Nova each appear together on the show (outgoing and incoming Principal Trombones for the Calgary Philharmonic). Gonçalo is a really nice young man, and his playing (that I have checked out on YouTube) is spectacular! It was a nice coincidence that 45 years ago, I came to Calgary straight out of Juilliard, and now he's doing the same thing.
I would encourage anyone interested to check out Gonçalo's solo playing online - there are some great videos of the Prague Competition from a few years ago, which he won as a 19-year-old! My colleagues are in for a treat.
I also was new to the Alessi Music Studio site, and I have thoroughly enjoyed checking out the various offerings on the site over the last few days. It is a subscription service, but the fee is inexpensive, and there is a lot of good content. Now that I'm not going to have daily rehearsals and concerts, I'm going to enjoy the various play-along warm-ups and duets with Joe to keep up some skills. Anyway, I would recommend it as a good resource, and I'm not on the payroll for any portion of it. The video of today's webinar will be added to the site sometime soon.
Jim Scott