During her years in Seattle, trumpeter Samantha Boshnack developed impressively as a player eager to take musical chances. At the same time, she often hiked the Pacific Northwest’s mountains, many of them volcanoes with explosions in their pasts, in the case of Mount St. Helens, a spectacular eruption in 1980. That is recent, in geological terms. Boshnack became intrigued not only with volcanoes but with the overall seismic behavior that continues to be a major and often disruptive aspect of life on Earth. Seismic Belt combines her musical and scientific interests in a powerful work of chamber music played by a group that includes strings. Her composing and arranging for the album are at least as central to its success as her trumpet playing. “Tectonic Plates” inspired by volatile seismic acitivity, features the string section, Ryan Parish’s baritone saxophone and Boshnack’s trumpet.
Seismic Belt was recorded in concert in 2018 at Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, California.