This month’s spotlight features Hermon Mehari, an accomplished jazz musician. Take a look into Hermon’s inspiring journey to becoming an award winning trumpet player, whose talents have taken him around the world.
Could you briefly explain some of your responsibilities in your current career role?
My career consists first and foremost of playing the trumpet in an artful manner, but being a musician in this day and age requires more than being adept at an instrument. Like other freelancers, I have to manage my own schedule and create my own routines. I am solicited as a sideman in other peoples’ projects, whether for recordings, one-off concerts or tours. Obviously I also have my own groups where I’m the leader, and in this case I’m solicited by venues, festivals, and concert series. However, I also do my own booking where I search for places and markets to play. In the end, I’m also acting as a travel agent sometimes because I have to coordinate my travel between all of the different people I play with. I’m on the road about 65% of the time, and I practice the trumpet at least one hour a day. There’s also rehearsals with the various groups. I have many other responsibilities but these are the most common for musicians in my career role.
How did you decide that this was the right career path for you?
I started playing the trumpet in seventh grade in my middle school band program in Jefferson City, Missouri. I tried multiple instruments and was able to make a sound on it, so I decided to go with it. I took a class on improvisation a year later and fell in love with this idea of being able to create music in the moment with my instrument. As a result I started listening to a lot of jazz music and really got obsessed. By the time I was in high school I was gigging every weekend all over mid-Missouri. Music became my life, there really wasn’t any doubt for me. I went to Kansas City to study at the Conservatory at the University of Missouri – Kansas City while beginning to develop my career at the same time.
What is your favorite and least favorite part about being a musician?
My favorite part about being a musician is the ability to share indescribable moments with people all over the world– using only notes I can affect people in profound ways, make them feel, remember, forget, smile, laugh, cry, and so on. My least favorite part would probably be the travel part of travelling. I love being in other places, interacting with new cultures, having communities all over the world, and all of the things that come with constant travel, but I don’t like all my time spent at airports, on planes, in cars, etc.
Can you describe your favorite performance in your career?
It’s hard to pick one, because I have so many various favorites! They’re all so different. But I’ll choose one to highlight: a few years ago I played at an abandoned hospital complex in the middle of Paris which was turned into an artist squat. The band included my American colleagues who came to Paris to perform with me, and we played for a packed room of people mostly in their mid to late 20s who listened to and hung onto every note we played. There was a crazy energy that night and they couldn’t have enough of us!
What qualities do you think make a great musician?
The most important qualities of a great musician are integrity, honesty, and originality. Our person is reflected in our music and especially so in jazz music.
What are three things someone should consider if they are interested in a career as a musician?
I always tell those interested in music that they should 1) love it to the extent that it’s not a sacrifice to not make a lot of money with it (although you can earn lots of money too of course!), 2) be willing to continuously work hard at the craft, and 3) be as creative with their business sense as they are with their music.
What are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of your career?
The most rewarding aspect of my career is being able to see and experience the world. I’ve been to countless countries and some of them, such as France, Italy, Turkey, and Germany, I’ve really been all over. The challenging aspects are just finding ways to balance everything– when the line between your career and life isn’t clear it can make it difficult to do everything. Maintaining relationships around the world is a lot of work, giving enough time to certain tasks, finding good consistent time to work on my trumpet, etc.
What is your favorite memory of flying?
The one transatlantic flight I actually succeeded to sleep through a few years ago, haha!!!
To date, what is your greatest professional accomplishment?
The thing people can most relate to is probably my winning the 2015 Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Competition, both because people tend to like competitions and because the idea of being a great musician is such a subjective abstract thing to them. But it’s exactly this subjectivity why I wouldn’t celebrate it as my greatest professional accomplishment (music isn’t a competition after all, it’s art). My debut album “Bleu” debuted #1 on the iTunes jazz charts which I feel was a pretty good accomplishment, especially for a first album.
What advice would you give someone looking to transition into your line of work?
There’s multiple streams of revenue an artist can have– so it’s good to deeply understand all of them and how they are evolving.
What do you do for fun outside your hard work and efforts toward building your career? Hobbies?
I’m a big fan of food. I love all types of cuisine from all over the world, whether it’s Michelin-starred or street food. Many of my friends are chefs, some professional and some just great at home cooks. I enjoy cooking as well. Luckily, I’m also a fan of running haha! I’ve been running steadily for about four years now, and have in the past two years started training and doing races. The last big hobby I’ll mention is reading. I love reading all kinds of books: classics, contemporary fiction, fantasy, nonfiction, etc. Fortunately this coincides well with my constant travel!
Hermon‘s new album “Arc Fiction” is available for purchase here!