Tarleton advances to National Trumpet Competition for fourth straight year

Advertisement
The Tarleton State University Trumpet Ensemble has qualified for the National Trumpet Competition for the fourth straight year. Pictured (l-r) are Dr. Brian Walker, William Brown, Tim Wilson, Danny Norton, Matt Edwards, Akira Okamoto and Taylor Welch.

STEPHENVILLE (January 29, 2019) — For the fourth straight year, Tarleton State University’s trumpet ensemble advances to the prestigious National Trumpet Competition (NTC).

Tarleton’s ensemble — six student musicians — will compete against 29 other colleges and universities March 13-16 at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, marking only the fourth time any Tarleton music ensemble has advanced to the final round of a national competition.

Led by Associate Professor of Trumpet, Dr. Brian Walker, the ensemble will perform his arrangement of “Scheherazade” composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The piece, originally a symphonic suite composed in 1888 and based on “One Thousand and One Nights” (also known as The Arabian Nights), is considered one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most popular works.

Tarleton is the only Division II school among the 30 ensembles selected for this year’s NTC out of approximately 100 entries. Students began rehearsing competition music in August, fine-tuning the arrangement ahead of the upcoming NTC.

Student ensemble members are Akira Okamoto, senior music education major from Frisco, Texas; Tim Wilson, senior music education major from Midlothian, Texas; Taylor Welch, sophomore music performance major from Fort Worth; Danny Norton, junior music performance major from West, Texas; Matt Edwards, junior music education major from North Richland Hills, Texas; and William Brown, freshman music education major from Eastland, Texas.

In addition to Tarleton’s Trumpet Ensemble being selected for the NTC, Okamoto was one of 60 student musicians chosen from 300 entries to compete in the Undergraduate Solo Division. He will be competing with the first movement of the “Concerto in F Minor” by Oskar Bohme.

Both Okamoto and Wilson are familiar with the NTC as they have been a member of all three Tarleton Trumpet Ensembles advancing to the national competition since their sophomore year in 2016.

“I am very proud and excited for these students to represent Tarleton for the fourth year in a row at this competition,” Walker said. “As with any competition, it is difficult to continually repeat success year after year, and these musicians have made the commitment to do just that. This competition is our ‘March Madness,’ and we look forward to see how we stack up with the great competitors from other schools.”

For more information about bands and select ensembles at Tarleton, visit www.tarleton.edu/band.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.