Julian Kaplan doesn’t recall the exact orchestral piece he heard as a teenager, while attending his first concert of the Charlotte Symphony. But he distinctly remembers that it began with a prominent solo by the principal trumpet player — who happened to be his teacher.
It was a revelation for the youth, who up to then had regarded symphonic music as a tad dull — lacking, perhaps, in exciting parts for the trumpet.
“I think it was Pictures at an Exhibition, Julian said recently, of the Mussorgsky tone poem whose trumpet solos are a principal player’s dream. Whatever it was, he added, the experience “immediately dispelled my belief that there was nothing good for the trumpet to play in orchestral music.”
He began to pay closer attention to his teacher, Michael Miller, the then-principal at the Charlotte Symphony who, since 2006, has been a member of the Cleveland Orchestra.
“I remember watching him, and every time he would reach down for the trumpet, I knew there was something interesting coming,” said Julian, as we chatted recently in one of the Kauffman Center’s backstage warmup rooms. “And even as a kid I remember thinking, if I thought the orchestra was so boring, why do I get so excited every time I see the trumpet is about to play?”
So the Ohio native decided to get serious about music, even though conventional wisdom dictated that if a youngster was not already learning the crucial orchestral-audition excerpts by age 12 or so, it might be too late.
Michael believed in him, and Julian proved a quick study. Little did either of them suspect these lessons would lead all the way to a top spot at the Kansas City Symphony’s brass section — as the James B. and Annabel Nutter Principal Chair.
“At that point I didn’t know that there were trumpets in different keys, or what transposition was,” Julian said. “I remember playing some of the excerpts for Mr. Miller … and he’d say, ‘Well that sounds okay, but are you going to play it in the right key?’ ”
Also around this time Julian’s father, himself a musician, told his son that Wynton Marsalis was the best trumpet player in the world. “And so I ordered about 24 of his CDs and put them on my parents’ credit card.”
With this welcome new focus, Julian advanced so rapidly on the trumpet that he won a full-tuition scholarship to study at the University of Kentucky. There he earned his bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance with Mark Clodfelter, with additional studies with Vince DiMartino — both prominent figures in the trumpet world.
From each of his teachers, Julian gained something unique, from Michael’s orchestral aplomb to Mark’s classical expertise and Vince’s grasp of jazz and beyond.
All of this proved ideal preparation for the wide range of styles the modern orchestral player is expected to master. “The important thing is … having the fundamentals of the trumpet so strong that it doesn’t really matter what music is in front of you,” Julian said.
Before he even finished college, Julian was named principal of the Lexington Philharmonic, where he played for two years before spending five with the Jacksonville Symphony — first as second trumpet and, for three years, as principal.
Then in 2015 he made a sizeable leap, to the principal spot at Kansas City Symphony, where he is currently celebrating his 10th anniversary. He has also appeared as a guest principal for the orchestras of St. Louis, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh, and in 2024 he added a European tour to his resume when Matthias Pintscher took the Kansas City Symphony to Berlin, Amsterdam, and Hamburg.
Joining the Symphony was not the only transformative aspect of Julian’s Kansas City experience. Not long after his arrival here, he met the love of his life. “We’ve been together since 2016,” Julian said of Bryan, a local nurse practitioner. “I met him shortly after I got tenure at the Symphony, and we’ve hardly spent a day apart since then. We hate being away from each other.”
Engaged in 2019, the couple got married on New Year’s Eve 2021, while on vacation in Colorado. It was a neutral affair in a Denver courtroom, “so our wedding photo is us holding up a yellow envelope that said Important Documents,” he said with a laugh.
The perspective that Bryan brought to Julian’s life was invaluable. While Bryan is off saving lives, “the worst thing that might happen to me in a day is that it’s too cold onstage and it’s hard to play in tune,” Julian said.
Their life together is a refreshing change from their very different workaday lives. They play Fortnite together, tend their two Huskies, and travel. “I’m obsessed with Japan,” Julian said. “I’m learning Japanese, and I’ve been to Japan the last few summers.”
As for his listening habits? When classical music is your day job, you often seek solace elsewhere. “Most of what I listen to, honestly, is J-Pop music — and Japanese podcasts.”
Julian is also an enthusiastic road biker and can often be seen out with friends: including Michael Gordon, the Symphony’s principal flutist. Living a healthy life is important to someone for whom breathing is literally how you earn your living.
“I don’t smoke, I don’t drink that much, and I ride my bike a lot,” Julian said. He avoids greasy foods altogether, and shies from citrus or dairy products, especially on a concert day. “That stuff makes me feel puffy and uncomfortable, and I definitely play better when I feel good.”
Julian is modest about his talents. “But the one thing I was blessed with naturally was a really big set of lungs,” he said. “So my air capacity is very, very high. It’s not something I have to think about much: I can play for a very long time.”
Being a gay brass player is not as odd as it once was. People might be surprised at how open and tolerant today’s American orchestras are when it comes to race, class, or sexual orientation. Blind auditions have gone a long way in diversifying orchestras, though the needle is still moving. “While there are always things that we know we can improve,” Julian said, “the effort is absolutely there to make the process as accepting and as fair and as blind as we can make it. We just want the best players.”
Though homophobia still exists in many areas of our culture, Julian said that “personally I haven’t ever experienced unfair treatment. … Just in the 17 years I’ve been in this field, there has been a massive change in the orchestra world, and especially now post-pandemic, where it feels that so much is different.”
Welcoming a new music director to Kansas City was another happy surprise. “The connection was almost instantaneous,” he said of Matthias’ bond with the musicians. “He has that quality that just makes you want to do your best work for him. I don’t know if it’s something you’re born with, or charisma — but he has it. It’s really comforting, and it’s really fun to work with him.”
The European tour was “unbelievable,” he added. “It was definitely something that we didn’t think would happen for us, and so soon. … Nobody growing up or attending music school thinks about ‘joining an orchestra that will tour.’ You just want to win the job and go from there. But for that to happen to us, and to happen so quickly, was really amazing.”
—By Paul Horsley
To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send an email to paul@kcindependent.com or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or X/Instagram (@phorsleycritic).
