{"id":138,"date":"2019-04-02T08:11:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T15:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999944376"},"modified":"2019-09-11T13:46:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T20:46:26","slug":"csulb-jazz-trumpeter-cade-gotthardt-wins-national-award-but-doesnt-play-for-the-accolades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/art\/csulb-jazz-trumpeter-cade-gotthardt-wins-national-award-but-doesnt-play-for-the-accolades","title":{"rendered":"CSULB jazz trumpeter, Cade Gotthardt, wins national award but doesn\u2019t play for the accolades"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Cade Gotthardt. Photo by\u00a0Cheantay Jensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the ra-ra of Lady Gaga was topping Billboard charts and Lil Wayne\u2019s incarceration was propelling the sales of his eighth studio album, \u201cI\u2019m Not a Human Being,\u201d Cade Gotthardt was listening to Miles Davis.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the trumpet-playing seventh grader was listening to \u201cKind of Blue,\u201d one of jazz\u2019s most influential albums and the record that sparked his own obsession with the genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I didn’t need anything else,\u201d said Gotthardt, now a senior performance major at Cal State Long Beach. \u201cIt was so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

A product of elementary school band practice and private lessons, Gotthardt\u2019s trumpet career isn\u2019t one that would lend itself to a dramatic screenplay. But his love affair with the instrument was a gradual devotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of describe my relationship with jazz as an arranged marriage,\u201d the Santa Cruz transplant said. \u201cI just kind of chose music as a hobby, and then over time, without realizing it, I slowly fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His diploma in jazz trumpet performance nearly at hand, the Long Beach denizen will be graduating from CSULB this spring. Taking with him several years of experience playing with Cal State\u2019s acclaimed jazz ensemble, and a slew of other freelance performances under his mouthpiece, Gotthardt now has a noteworthy title to accompany his final bow out of college.<\/p>\n

Winner of the Yamaha Young Performing Artists award, Gotthardt is one of only 11 students to win the national competition\u2014an annual program that recognizes outstanding musicians from the world of classical, jazz and contemporary music.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cade Gotthardt. Photo by\u00a0Cheantay Jensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to being the stand-alone winner to represent CSULB, Gotthardt is the second of only two recipients to come from a state school\u2014quite an accomplishment considering most of the winners come from some of the most rigorous music schools in the country, like the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, or the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Many of Yamaha\u2019s winners go on to play for distinguished orchestras and worldwide ensembles like the New York Philharmonic or Vienna Symphony.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was definitely surprised,\u201d the 22-year-old said. \u201cHonestly, I had forgotten that I applied because I didn’t think winning it was going to even be an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years ago Gotthardt would have basked in this accomplishment. But accolades don\u2019t energize the young musician like they once did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [used to] put a lot of pressure on myself to be excellent,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I get in that kind of headspace it easily starts to become about the ego and just excellence for excellence\u2019s sake, as opposed to excellence for creativity’s sake.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days, he plays for a feeling. For that moment where he can completely lose himself and sit in the nebulous transcendence of a song.<\/p>\n

An outlet, music enables him to experience in a pure and powerful way the many emotional aspects of what it means to be human. As a budding composer, still exploring his own voice and style, he aims to write music that is, as he puts it, the truest resonance of his soul or spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything that he plays or writes comes from profound introspective emotion and thought,\u201d Paul Smith, a fellow jazz studies senior at CSULB said. \u201cHis self-awareness as a person is largely what informs his musical expression, and results in mature and inherently unique music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last October, Gotthardt wrote his first original jazz piece titled, \u201cSearching for Something\u201d that premiered at the Bob Cole Conservatory. That got Yamaha\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n