PAUL RANDALL PRINCIPAL

The George Smedes Poyner Chair

Paul Randall hails from Michigan. He grew up in a very musical family; his father was a professional musician and so is his sister.  He began studying the trumpet with Irving Sarin, former Principal Trumpet of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As a student, he attended the Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan and Tanglewood in western Massachusetts.

In 1973, at the age of 17, his professional career began when he took his first audition for a position with the New Orleans Symphony. He won that audition and was hired as Second Trumpet. In 1977, he became Principal Trumpet, performing with the orchestra in such places as Paris, Vienna, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. In the mid-1980s, the New Orleans Symphony participated in a documentary video on the life of composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. This video, which featured Randall prominently, still appears nationally on arts channels. In 1988, he was appointed Principal Trumpet of the North Carolina Symphony.

Randall has been a soloist many times with both orchestras, as well as at the Eastern Music Festival, where he premiered a concerto written for him by Carl Roskott. In addition to EMF, he has performed with the Grand Teton Festival, the Chautauqua Festival, and the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. In addition to traveling around North Carolina with the NCS, he has traveled the state with the Capital Brass, a group consisting of members of the NCS brass section. Randall is featured along with Tim Stewart on the American Spectrum CD recorded by NCS in 2008 on the BIS label.

When he’s not playing the trumpet, he indulges his other passion, tennis. He is an avid player, playing both singles and doubles. He has played on a number of local USTA league teams, as well in the Raleigh Area Tennis league. Much to the chagrin of his family, he plans his tennis schedule around the Symphony schedule, trying to work in four days of tennis per week.