My Girls! At the IWBC conference in Phoenix, I met two very talented young women trumpeters, students at UCLA. Had the opportunity to work with them several times during the conference. We kept in touch and both girls, Kayla Solomon and Ellen Shinogle, came to Vienna that Christmas to have some lessons and to experience the “City of Music”. As things were closing down all over the world because of Covid-19, I offered to teach them “virtually”. Having seen that on-line lessons were going well, I took on 2 more students. Johanna Kaiser is working on her master’s degree in Graz. We met at a local town festival in the mountains of southern Austria, where we have a house. Johanna was our waitress. She was quite excited to meet Manfred and me, having heard of our careers. For the past 10 years, I was part of an exchange program between our university and Mahidol University in Bangkok. “Paint”, Kunyaporn Wirunpochit, caught my attention in 2018. As tiny as she is, she stood out in her determination and ability. I thought it would be good for the girls to have contact with one another, so after some exchanges of e-mails and videos, the girls wanted to meet via Zoom. We’ve even had a few playing sessions where each plays something for the others. On Dec. 20th, the highlight of my birthday was a Zoom party with my girls – “Paint” in Thailand (9 P.M.), Johanna and myself in Austria (3 P.M.), Kayla in Winnipeg (8 A.M.),and Ellen in Los Angeles (6 A.M.), a truly international effort! I was thrilled at the wonderful surprise musical gift, arranged by Kayla, that they were able to put together, and I would like to share this joy with everyone!
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