Beijing Impressions was written after my first experience visiting China and specifically Beijing. In working with young students, learning musical traditions, and seeing the Forbidden City, I attempted to write music that would evoke these experiences.

The performance was done at the Alba Music Festival in Alba, Italy.

Beijing Impressions--I. Forbidden City, II. Taxi Ride

Kyle Simpson, composer, trumpet player, and bandleader, is a graduate from Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Appleton, WI and The University of Montana in Missoula, MT.  His main composition teachers were Fred Sturm at Lawrence and Charles Nichols at The University of Montana.  Simpson has written many works for large jazz groups, chamber jazz groups, solo trumpet, synthesized electronic music, Orchestra, and Wind Ensemble.  Recent compositions were featured at the Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival in Missoula, where he also performed with Lew Soloff and Paquito D'Rivera. Other compositions have been featured at the Fête de la Musique Ile d'Yeu (2011) and Ostrava Days (2011).  Simpson’s music has been described as, “lively with rhythmic vitality” and also, “lyrical with a brooding elegance.” 

In 2005, he studied with Dave Douglas and other great contemporary jazz artists in Banff, Canada at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2006, Simpson was awarded an ASCAP Scholarship to study at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles, CA, where he worked with Maria Schneider, Vince Mendoza, Jack Smalley, and Bruce Broughton.  Simpson’s work Autumn Fields was scored for chamber orchestra and was premiered in Schoenberg Hall at UCLA and conducted by Vince Mendoza. Kyle Simpson has also worked with the Universal Studio orchestra in creating new library music.

In 2007, Simpson went on tour with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra as a split soloist and arranger under the direction of Larry O’Brien. Simpson also produced and arranged The Very Thought of You, album by the male vocalist, Ryan Garfi, of the same band.

Recently, Simpson was awarded the Michael Iovenko Fellowship to study composition at the Ecole Normale De Musique in Paris, France.  In June 2011, he was also awarded the Film Music Foundation Scholarship for the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop in New York. Simpson just finished a recording project with the Czech Radio Symphony Brass Quintet and String Quartet, in recording new pieces written for those ensembles. In August 2011, Simpson conducted his own composition Journey Into Wissameking with the Janaček Philharmonic, in Ostrava, CZ.

Beijing Impressions--I. Forbidden City, II. Taxi Ride

Kyle Simpson Film & Media Composer