Spotlight On: Tetsuya Lawson, Trumpet, HGO Orchestra

Like so many musicians who fell in love with classical music when they were young, Tetsuya Lawson was lucky to find the right teacher. With a Japanese mother and Australian father, neither of them particularly musically inclined, he started playing the trumpet in elementary school, but had no idea it would become his career. In fact, he thought he might pursue professional baseball. Then, in high school, he started learning with the principal trumpet of his local symphony orchestra. Suddenly, a fascinating world revealed itself to him.  

Tetsuya decided to pursue his master’s degree in music and landed at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, moving to Houston from his home in the Land Down Under in 2018. He had no particular plan to stay here, but then, in a twist of fate, he auditioned for the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra in May 2019 and won a coveted spot. He has been with the company ever since.  

Here’s Tetsuya on his life and career, in his own words:  

When I was a kid in Japan, probably five years old at the time, I saw a band where someone was playing trumpet. I told my teacher; I want to play trumpet one day. After that, we moved to Australia, and I ended up playing the trumpet in primary school. I took it seriously, but I wasn’t like, okay, this is going to be my career, or anything. I was actually considering doing baseball, which was very weird because baseball is not very big in Australia. 

Then in high school, I started learning with Sarah Butler, the then-principal trumpet of Queensland Symphony Orchestra. She was one of the reasons that I was inspired to play professionally. I studied with her for two or three years in high school and even into university. She was, and still is, a wonderful teacher and mentor to me. There was one concert I vividly remember, where the symphony performed this big Strauss tone poem. Hearing not only her, but the whole brass section play together was very inspirational. I was already starting to get pretty geeky about the music and orchestral world, but that was probably the shift.  

I came to Houston because I really wanted to study with these teachers who were very famous at Rice University. I had no concrete plans to live in the States. I was just going to be here for two years and then go wherever the music took me. So when I went in for my audition with HGO in May 2019, I didn’t put too much pressure on myself. I thought, it’s a great company and If I get it, that would be great, but if I don’t, I’m not afraid. I think that helped, actually.  

I never expected to play with an opera company, but getting the opportunity to work with so many different people—from the world-class singers to the costume and set designers, conductors, directors, stage crew, and my wonderful colleagues in the HGO Orchestra—to create a huge masterwork on stage has been so rewarding. As a foreigner, I had no idea how rich Houston's art scene was until I moved here and heard HGO perform Puccini's La bohème while I was a student at the Shepherd School. I feel very lucky to have landed a job in such a prestigious company. 

Turandot has been one of my favorite operas to perform. That was with Eun Sun Kim conducting. It was the first time I’d worked with her on the podium, and I mean, it was just such clear, concise conducting. She really knew what she wanted, conceptually and musically, out of the production. Working with her was exciting. And I just think Puccini’s music is just so, so beautiful. 

When I tell people that I play trumpet, one thing a lot of them say is, oh, you must have great lungs, or great breath work or whatever, which is really funny. Yeah, that’s not true. I breathe the same as most other people. I’ve never done any breathing exercises, and I was never good at swimming either. 

I think a big part of doing most music jobs, whether it’s Broadway, opera, rock bands, or your favorite pop singers—is that you have to do it more than once. And you know, singers will do something different. The conductors will do something slightly different. There’s definitely an art to being consistent while also trying to make every performance a little different, because it’s never going to be the same.  

To succeed as a musician you need persistence, because the journey is not a straight line to where you want to be. You also need to be confident. It’s a fake-it-till-you-make-it type of thing. And you need to have a real love for the art, because when you have that, people really feel it when you play. 

A lot of people assume artists are innately talented or something. They’re like, you must be so talented to be a musician. And I do believe everyone has a little talent, for sure, but there’s a lot of work that goes into it. Even the best—my idols, people I really look up to—they still have to put in a lot of hard work, too. It’s a balance between talent and determination, I think. 

I try to always remember, at every performance, that there could be someone for whom it’s their first time at an opera. I don’t know who is coming to the opera. I don’t know if they’ve had a bad day, if they’ve had a great day, if it’s their first experience with opera, or if they’ve been coming here for 20 years. So, I make sure I’m as engaged and focused as possible during the performance so I can give everything I have in that moment, not saving it for tomorrow or the next day. How I play is only one part of the big picture of the production, but if I can give my hundred percent, then I know that I could influence someone to be like, wow, that was like an amazing experience, and want to come back. That’s the goal.