Randall Hawes

Randall Hawes, bass trombone

Randall Hawes is currently guest bass trombonist of the Cleveland Orchestra, a position he began in September of 2020. He retired from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2020, after a 35 year career. He studied with William Rivard at Central Michigan University and with Byron McCollough at Carnegie Mellon. After touring Europe for 10 months in a production of Porgy and Bess, he joined the Woody Herman Thundering Herd for two years and was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center before joining the DSO in the fall of 1985. Hawes has performed with the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Alabama. He has toured with Summit Brass, Burning River Brass, The Saito Kinen Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Hawes is a frequent recitalist and has performed chamber music with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Music of the Baroque, among others. In 1995, he was invited by Sir Georg Solti to join the World Orchestra for Peace and has been a member since then. In 2018 he gave the world premiere performance of Concerto for bass trombone by Kenneth Fuchs and has commissioned and performed many new pieces for bass trombone. Mr. Hawes can be heard on recordings with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra as well as solo recordings with pianist Kathryn Goodson; Barnburner, Melodrama and Belle Nuit. In 2014, he joined the National Brass Ensemble and has recorded two cds; Gabrieli (2015) and Tim Higgin’s arrangement of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (2022). Hawes teaches and performs at the Aspen Music Festival, is lecturer at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University and a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music and has given masterclasses in Europe and Asia.

Randall Hawes performs on Bach trombones and the Lätzsch contrabass trombone.