On the Road with Joanne Robinson: Show 202 Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City skyline by WFRC

Hi everybody! I just got back from Salt Lake City, Utah, where we had a blast taping an episode of the radio show.

As usual, the show featured an amazing array of talent. One of the standouts for me was ten-year-old trumpet player Natalie Dungey. She is by far the youngest trumpet player we’ve ever featured, and we all found it pretty astonishing that such a young girl could produce such a polished sound on such a difficult brass instrument. Check out this footage of Natalie rehearsing her piece with Chris the night before the show. Believe it or not, this was the very first time they had played through the piece together!

Utah is positively brimming with talented young musicians, and we were lucky to be able to feature several of them, including 15-year-old pianist Weiyi Le, who performed Stravinsky, and 17-year-old violist Jossalyn Jensen, who introduced us to her huge musical family. We also featured a wonderful string orchestra, comprised of kids from Utah’s Gifted Music School.

The taping went off without a hitch, and the audience couldn’t have been more effusive. They laughed really hard when we poked fun of Utah’s “Official State Snack” — green jello — which was bravely sampled by John Ringor, a teenage percussionist.

The young performers really bonded and had a great time goofing off backstage before the show. Here’s a Flip video clip of Wieyi Le playing the theme song to Nintendo’s Mario Brothers on the harpsichord, with vocal accompaniment from John Ringor.

I think we were all sad to leave. I know I was!

Until next time…