NATCHITOCHES – Taylor Carrell had no idea a random discovery would take him on a year-long musical journey. Carrell, a Master of Music student at Northwestern State University from Huntington, Texas, uncovered a copy of handwritten manuscript of “Concerto for Tuba and Band” by American composer Rule Beasley which has not been performed with a full band for more than four decades. He will perform the work with the NSU Wind Symphony on Saturday, March 7 at 7;30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. A livestream of the concert will be available at www.nsula/CAPA-LIVE. Director of Bands Dr. Anthony Pursell will conduct the Wind Symphony.
The concert will also include the induction of Christopher Brown of Newark, Texas, Sherman Desselle of Houston and Mark Poole of Little Elm, Texas, into the Dear School of Creative and Performing Arts Hall of Fame.
Beasley, who is 94 and lives in Oregon where he remains active, will be coming to NSU to attend the concert along with family members, Paul Beasley and George Ragland.
“We feel so honored and cannot thank them enough for making such a long-distance trip to join us for the concert,” said Carrell. “It means so much for all of us involved in the performance.”
Carrell will be performing four works by Beasley at his master’s recital on April 9 at 5:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall.
“When I first played through this concerto, I instantly knew it was an amazing piece of music,” said Carrell. “To this day, it is by far my favorite piece of music.”
Carrell recalls his first experience with the piece.
“I was teaching full-time and working a part-time job in November of 2023. It was in between my busy schedule that I found Beasley’s ‘Concerto for Tuba and Band,’ and I was so inspired that I began researching deeper into the work to find that almost no academic study had been completed.”
NSU Professor of Euphonium-Tuba Dr. Masahito Kuroda has also studied Beasley’s work.
“When Taylor brought this piece to my attention in our lesson class, it immediately rang a bell that I had seen this name and the handwriting before,” said Kuroda. “I looked up in my collection and found another work by Beasley titled ‘Fantasy for Euphonium and Band,’ also a copy of handwritten manuscript, that I studied under my own mentor professor, late Dr. Earle L. Louder, former euphonium soloist of U.S. Navy Band Washington D. C., But I was not familiar with this tuba concerto.
“As we began to study the work closely in lessons movement by movement with Taylor on tuba and myself on piano, we were completely mesmerized by its beauty. This is when we decided that this will be the topic of his performance document for his Master of Music degree.”
Carrell’s research found that the composer has a strong north Louisiana connection. Beasley taught at Centenary College from 1958 to 1965, and he and his wife Lida Beasley performed with the Shreveport Symphony. Beasley taught at the University of North Texas from 1965 to 1975. During this time, Beasley wrote his tuba concerto for friend and colleague David Kuehn, then a professor of tuba at University of North Texas. The work premiered in 1969 with Kuehn and the UNT Campus Band under conductor Douglas Wiehe.
Carrell began his research communicating with the composer’s son, John Beasley, an international jazz pianist, who hosted Taylor at his home in Los Angeles for his first interview with him and his father.
“Through my research, I discovered that the tuba concerto was performed by several very notable tuba players at the time. However, the work simply never ended up being published, and largely unknown to the current generation of tuba players.” said Carrell. “It is one of my goals with this project to not only remind the public of Mr. Beasley’s incredible pieces but also to help him get the works published so that future musicians and audiences can enjoy them as much as I have.”
Carrell’s research faced some difficulty as he found most of Beasley’s works have not been published and are instead stored with him in manuscript form in Oregon. Carrell worked with NSU Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. Greg Handel, Director of School of Creative and Performing Arts Scott Burrell and Dr. Terrie Sanders, Music Department chair to receive needed support for his research. Carrell was able to meet with Beasley access the original manuscript for “Concerto for Tuba and Band.”
“I am extremely grateful to CAPA for helping me make this trip a reality and John Beasley for hosting me in Los Angeles for and for allowing me such intimate access to his family. I could tell from our discussion that he understood just as much, if not more, how important it is that his father’s music and story is not forgotten,” said Carrell. “This research has felt like my own little musical ‘Jurassic Park.’”
Carrell’s subsequent visit to the composer’s residence in The Dalles, Oregon, resulted in another recorded interview and the digitization of Beasley’s entire manuscript collection of over 2,000 pages of handwritten music.
“It is extremely important to me that we have digitally archived this many of Mr. Beasley’s works as the condition of the manuscripts degrades over time,” said Carrell. “In time, I would love to work with Mr. Beasley and his family to find a physical archival method for these manuscripts.”
As his research progressed, the topic drew great interest in the professional music field. In the last two months, Carrell’s research on Beasley’s music was selected to be presented at the Louisiana Music Educators Association Conference, as well as the Texas Music Educators Association Conference.
Carrell was also selected to present a lecture recital, at the International Tuba Euphonium Association South Central Regional Conference at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas, later this month. Dr. Chialing Hsieh, NSU associate professor of collaborative piano, will be performing with him for the recital.
Funding for the trip was made possible by the College of Arts and Sciences Scholarly Activity Grant Program, which is part of the NSU Foundation College of Arts and Sciences Enhancement Fund (CASEF).
The grant was made possible by a donation by Dr. Kathleen “Kass” Byrd, an anthropologist and former state archaeologist who served as head of NSU’s School of Social Sciences for 12 years.
“I appreciate Dr. Byrd and (Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences) Dr. Francene Lemoine for making this research trip possible,” said Carrell. “With their support, Dr. Hsieh and I will be able to further promote the life and works of Mr. Beasley and begin the process of reintroducing them to musicians.”
Carrell hopes to continue this research by creating a definitive biography for Beasley and to re-premiere and publish as many Beasley works as possible with the help of his colleagues. Carrell welcomes participants in this research project, and can be contacted at tcarrell252132@nsula.edu, or taylorwcarrell@gmail.com.