Hello, all.
Having been a lurker for some time on TPIN, with an occasional word slipped in hither and thither, I am pleased to see reaction to the Charlier Companion. The book is indeed a set of second trumpet parts to the original Charlier, although all of the 36 exercises are independent etudes in their own right.

I had been faking second parts behind etudes played by my students for quite a while when one of them simply asked why I had not written them down. Uhh, well, I...hmmm... So I wrote 'em down during the summer of 2000 at Blue Lake (that is when Mike Anderson read some of them through with me).

They got published just in time for the ITG conference in Richmond, Indiana, where Dave Baldwin and Ramon Vasquez played a few of them during Baldwin's Charlier presentation.

The book was reviewed very favorably in the January 2002 ITG Journal (which was rather a coincidence (honest), as I had, months before, as prez of ITG offered Companion #2 to the ITG as a anniversary gift, and there it was, in the January journal).

Anyway, the book has been making the rounds in Europe (I gave a talk on it at the Euro-ITG conference last November), and Dave Wood over at Portland Sheet Music tells me that the Companion is moving off the shelf at a rate very uncharacteristic of a new book - he just ordered eight more, and King just got sent another 13.

If you are interested in the book, all the info you need (and then some) is on the Triplo Press website (www.triplo.com). Just follow the prompts.

For you all who use the Charlier, this thing is really fun and challenging without being ridiculous, and it will change the way you play the original etudes. That I can guarantee.

Jim Olcott, Triplo Press
www.triplo.com