A trumpet star will shine on Rogue Valley stages this weekend.

Award-winning and world-renowned classical trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden will be the guest artist at Rogue Valley Symphony’s first fall concerts Friday through Sunday, Oct. 20-22.

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Saturday at Medford’s Craterian Theater, and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall in Ashland.

Bowden will perform Henri Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto and Claude Debussy’s “Rêverie” with the orchestra.

The concerto is a piece she performed when she was 18 during her audition for the Curtis Institute of Music.

“It’s been wonderful to revisit it again,” she said. “It was transformative for me when I was a teenager.”

Her trumpet mentor at the time, Kari Lee, asked her to learn it for college auditions.

“I thought it was too challenging, but she believed in me, believed I could learn it. It pushed me to grow in many ways. It’s a gorgeous work, and I am grateful to have learned it at a young age,” Bowden said.

The concerto has been described as a bit like “Debussy meets film noir.” Mutes are used to achieve different colors.

Phillip Ramey, an American composer, pianist and writer, described the mid-20th century composition as neo-classical in structure.

“Perhaps the most striking elements of this brittle yet lyric piece are the opening movement’s trumpet cadenza with quiet snare-drum background and the jaunty cartoon music finale,” Barney wrote in liner notes for a recording of the work.

Bowden’s other piece on the RVS program, Debussy’s “Rêverie,” was originally written for piano solo, but has been transcribed for other instruments and ensembles. The quiet, reflective passages have been described as dream-like.

While she is in town, Bowden has an expanded outreach schedule, holding demonstrations at Grants Pass, Phoenix and North Medford high schools, and Ashland Middle School. She also will conduct a brass clinic with the SOU band.

“We wanted to ensure we would have ample time to tour with her around the exceptional band programs in the Rogue Valley,” said Andrew Zucker, education and community outreach coordinator for the symphony.

When meeting with students this week, Bowden will talk about the history of the trumpet and her experiences with the instrument, share audition tips and practice strategies, and work with individual ensembles on pieces they are preparing.

Bowden is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Winchester, Virginia, and spends her summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She’s originally from New Lenox, Illinois, a southwest Chicago suburb.

She started playing the cornet when she was 10 years old. That instrument is a shorter cousin of the trumpet. It has a continuously conical bore, which provides a warmer sound than the trumpet, whose cylindrical bore results in a bright, piercing sound.

“My two older brothers played the trombone and horn,” Bowden said. She wanted to follow in their footsteps and play a brass instrument, too.

They had the same teacher, who would visit their house once a week to give them their lessons.

“He also took us to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and other concerts around the area,” she said.

She knew she wanted a career in music at an early age.

“I was very committed to practicing from day one,” she said. “And around age 13, I knew I wanted a life in music, even though I didn’t know what that might look like.”

She recently commissioned new concerti by Vivian Fung and Clarice Assad, which will be included on her new album for Cedille Records, to be released next summer.

“I’m passionate about adding new works to the trumpet repertoire by composers I love,” she said. “I’ve followed Vivian and Clarice’s works, and was elated when they agreed to write trumpet concerti for me.”

Bowden manages a rigorous schedule that includes performing all over the world, teaching, and serving as principal trumpet of the Artosphere Festival Orchestra in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“I have to stay very organized,” she said, “especially since I have a full-time studio teaching job at Shenandoah Conservatory (in Winchester, Virginia) and am the director of Seraph Brass.”

Bowden is the founding member and artistic leader of both Seraph Brass and the Chrysalis Chamber Players. Seraph is an ensemble of some of America’s top female brass players that was awarded the 2019 American Prize in Chamber Music. The group has performed internationally, recorded, and performed on Adele’s 2016 North American tour.

“There’s a lot to juggle,” she said. “I find that always putting trumpet artistry first in my day helps me stay prepared for upcoming shows.” In other words, job one is to practice, practice, practice.

As a performer, she’s traveled the world, but the biggest highlight for her so far is a performance closer to home, the premieres of the concerti she commissioned from Fung and Assad.

“Performing both of these pieces in Orchestra Hall with the Chicago Youth Symphony, my former youth orchestra, was very special,” she said. “I grew up watching the Chicago Symphony on that stage.”

For more information and to purchase tickets, go to rvsymphony.org or call 541-708-6400.