Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Distad and Justin Langham.
Stephen and Justin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We first met in the Fall of 2013 when I first moved to Houston to begin working on my master’s degree at the University of Houston. I was searching for opportunities to play around town and reached out to Stephen via email. He was organist, and is currently artist in residence, at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in west Houston, and generously invited me to play one or two Sunday mornings at his church as a paid trumpeter. A few weeks later, Stephen shattered two of his fingers in a weight-lifting accident while at his gym and needed to go regularly to a hand specialist near the medical center. He would suggest meeting for coffee to pass the time in between appointments and eventually, we both had the idea that we should put a duo together and play a series of concerts.
We came up with a French name, Deux Voix, meaning “two voices” as a way to pay homage to two titans of our craft: organ pedague Marie Claire-Alain, who Stephen studied under for a year in Paris, and Maurice André one of the true giants of the brass world who almost single-handedly brought the trumpet from the back of the orchestra to out in front of it as a solo instrument. After we found the name, we made a Facebook page, website, and ordered business cards, mostly having no idea what we were doing. Our goal was simple, to reach a new audience with a new style and new music for trumpet and organ.
We officially launched as Deux Voix in July of 2014, had our first out of town concert within one month in Georgetown, Texas just north of Austin. Within nine months, we performed in renowned venues such as the Mayo Clinic Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota, and a headlining event at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina for the L’Organo series at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. Over the next few years, we would make multiple cross-country trips, from as far west as Port Angeles and Seattle, Washington, to the east with performances at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, with stops in over 18 additional states in between.
Since the beginning, we have grown by leaps and bounds in many ways that we did not imagine five years ago. We have made two recordings, one in venues around Houston and one in the heart of Seattle, Washington. We have created or commissioned five brand new works for use, not including countless arrangements we have created for us to perform and share with others. We have toured across the U.S. and had the chance to perform in Denmark and Sweden on the way to two feature performances at the International Organ Festival in Bergan, Norway. For all of these opportunities, we consider ourselves very fortunate, but most importantly, we know that this is only the beginning!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been an amazing and smoother than expected journey since we first began 5 ½ years ago. We started from scratch in 2014 with nothing and have since played in some of the world’s most famous cathedrals and concert halls in the U.S. and abroad. Although it has been a great ride so far, no journey worth taking is without its challenges.
Instead of viewing them as obstacles, we would consider them opportunities to learn and grow for the future. In the beginning, we had no idea at first how to create and grow brand, so we started with a name, a page on social media, and a beginning level website. Once we reached a plateau and had no idea how to grow our brand further, we decided to hire a local publicist and they have been a huge help in modernizing and laying the foundation for the next five years. We also had no experience with recording, producing, or releasing a recording of any kind, but now we have two records and are in the planning stages of two more!
Growing has also come in the form of managing and growth on the business side of what we do. For example, neither of us knew how to raise money, ask for donations, or grow a donor base to pay for major projects. In the last five years, we have raised tens of thousands of dollars for projects like purchasing new instruments, touring across the U.S. and Scandinavia, previously mentioned recording projects, and the creation of new works for trumpet and organ. How our duo is classified financially was, and is, a source of growth opportunities as well. Once we realized that in order to raise the kinds of funds needed to achieve our goals could not come from splitting our income personally, we had to begin the process of applying for non-profit status. We eventually filed to be an official Texas LLC, and most recently, have been facing challenges and the learning process of incorporating as a non-profit.
Through it all, we continue to learn a lot through trial and error, and we are grateful for the advice and counsel from friends and colleagues. We never dreamed five years ago to be where we are now and feel very fortunate! At the same time, we are continually pushing to further heights and are excited to see where we could be another five years from now!
Deux Voix – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Things that make us different: Our mission as a duo has always been to bring a different style and new ideas to appeal to a larger audience of people, and I believe we have and will continue to strive towards that ideal. We are a duo that specializes in trumpet and pipe organ, two of the oldest means of music making, but we also have brought a modern style and more varied collection of repertoire to the table. The most common review we get from audiences is that the time flies by because of our variety of styles and genres that we offer. In our performances, an audience will hear a variety of musical genres, such as the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, popular operatic melodies, the tangos of Astor Piazzolla, and selections from the Great American Songbook made famous by Sinatra and many others. We also are committed to the commissioning and performance of new works, which we also perform regularly at events.
The unique aspect of our duo is our skill sets as individuals that gives us nearly unlimited possibilities in music making. Justin’s background as a composer and arranger has led to the creation of some of our most requested and most popular pieces. As a performer, he is comfortable playing in many different styles as a trumpet player and singer, which he does regularly at our events. Justin also is comfortable playing many different types of trumpets, and also plays the melodica frequently! Stephen is also a flexible and creative organist, using the instrument in a very musical manner. He gets the most out of every instrument he plays and is consistently told by our concert hosts that he exceeded their expectations for how their own instrument could sound. Both of us are comfortable improvising and creating in the moment, which has led to the creation of many arrangements and makes for spontaneous and exciting concerts!
Along that same line, our respective skill sets have allowed us to expand beyond the organ and trumpet realm and perform pop and jazz music for more intimate events. Since 2016, we have performed at private corporate events for Chevron and ExxonMobil, as a monthly act for a local restaurant, and many house concerts both in Houston and around the country. The variety of performance venues make us unique, where we can play a concert full of big trumpet and organ literature one day and then perform jazz at a small venue afterwards. Flexibility is really at the core of what makes us different, and we enjoy that about our duo.
Our ability to effectively communicate music to people of all ages is also a huge strength. We are proud to host a wide range of ages and backgrounds at our events. Our goal is always to get a variety of people to come to our events, which may or may not be fans of “classical music,” but want to try something new!
Our brand is not just about performance or creating new music. It is about outreach and education, and we have given talks and presented workshops for numerous entities, including for the Texas Methodist Conference and many chapters of the American Guild of Organists across the country. We also have given lectures at colleges such as Catawba College in North Carolina and Lone Star College Montgomery in the Woodlands north of Houston.
Things that make us proud: As a duo, we are proud of our reputation not only for the standard of music making and performing to which we hold ourselves but also of the manner in which we conduct ourselves and how we interact with others. We are proud of the fact that hosts in every case want to invite us back for a future concert, and are our most valued asset in securing next performances with their enthusiastic recommendations.
We are proud of our first music video that was officially released in the Fall. We collaborated with Houston-area producer Abbas Padilla and his company Big A Productions on this project and were thrilled with the result! It can be found on our YouTube channel and on our website!
We are incredibly fortunate and proud to have an amazing donor base that we have attained in a relatively short period of time. From the beginning, this has allowed us to fulfill every vision and goal we set out to accomplish.
We look back at our experiences in the last five years, and it makes us proud to be able to claim exhilarating and inspirational experiences in performing in such amazing venues, both big and small. More information, videos, pictures, and future performances can be found on our website.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
That is a difficult one to answer since there are so many of them to choose from! Performing is our passion and to share it with people around the world. There are three performance venues that we were immediately ecstatic about when we heard we were chosen to perform. They are the International Organ Festival in Bergen, Norway, two concerts at Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC, and the organ dedication at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, as a part of the Piccolo Spoleto Concert Series. These performances will forever remain etched in our memories as musical highs and achievements!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.deuxvoixmusic.com
- Email: info@deuxvoixmusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deuxvoixmusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeuxVoixMusic
- Other: YouTube Channel: Deux Voix Houston
Image Credit:
Isaac Gautchi, Joe Center, Kevin Mizell, Jonas Rydland, Rick Crider, Luis Calm Vidal
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