Vera Hørven and James Olcott

Olcott, Hørven and trumpet-playing guests - please click image for larger version

Family, friends, and former and current students descended upon Oxford, Ohio on Saturday, October 21, to celebrate the marriage of two members of the ITG Board of Directors, James Olcott and Vera Hørven.

Twenty-seven of the guests were trumpet players, who joined together to perform the processional (Bruremarsj frå Øre, a traditional Norwegian wedding march arranged for four parts by the groom) and the recessional (Olcott’s arrangement of Purcell’s Trumpet Tune) under the baton of Olcott student Brad Sherman.

“It was a totally grand sound,” said Olcott. “We knew it would be loud, so we had a little gift for each wedding guest: initialed earplugs.”

Other trumpet works during the ceremony included the Symphony from Act IV of the Fairy Queen by Purcell, and a set of dances by Tilman Susato, both performed by the Miami University Trumpet Ensemble, and Vårsøg,  composed by Henning Sommero, played unaccompanied by Daniel Zehringer, principal trumpet of the Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra.

Jim and Vera, originally married in mid-July, held the re-statement of vows in a late-morning/early afternoon affair in front of approximately 100, including family members and former students who had traveled from California, Minnesota, and as far away as the bride’s native country of Norway.

Vera has now completed the process of immigration to the United States. Her progress through immigration at Cincinnati airport in August was quoted by Jim during the wedding dinner. “The Special-Forces-type immigration officer nailed her with his eyes and asked: ‘What brought you to the USA?’ – ‘Well, I fell in love with this trumpeter, and I married him some weeks ago, so I’d like to live here for the rest of my life, please.’ The officer gave this fifty-year-old woman a somewhat suspicious look, so she continued: ‘I know I’m not supposed to marry a musician… but he could have been a drummer, so it could have been worse…’ The officer shook his head over towards his colleagues and said, ‘This lady is crazy…’ Then he turned back to the alien-wife-immigrant and said: ‘I will have to give you a Green Card so that you can start working. You’ll get it in the mail in six weeks.’ When Vera responded innocently: ‘Do I need a Green Card to iron my husband’s shirts?’ the officer told her to ‘Get outta here!!’ …and she did, to the waiting love of her life…”

The Olcotts have long been active with the International Trumpet Guild. Jim, a 2005 recipient of the ITG Award of Merit, has held every elective office in the guild and is now a member of the ITG Board of Directors, chair of the ITG CD Committee and Coordinator of the 2008 Ellsworth-Smith Solo Trumpet Competition. Vera is a current member of the ITG Board of Directors and functions as ITG’s European Membership Coordinator, official photographer for ITG conferences, and is a frequent writer for the ITG Journal.

The couple is residing in Oxford, Ohio, where Jim is a professor of trumpet at Miami University.

Source: Jim and Vera Olcott Photos: The New Studio/You See Photography, Inc.