2017 Wartburg Trumpet Festival
Dr. Scott Muntefering, Professor James Vaux, and The Wartburg Trumpet Studio hosted their seventh annual Wartburg Trumpet Festival March 9-10 with guest artists Dr. James Olcott and the Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble.
The 16-member Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble (TCTE) presented a recital on March 9th featuring many trumpet ensemble works including Brian Balmages’ Soundings and David Hickman’s arrangements of Goedicke’s Concert Etude and crowd-favorite Leroy Anderson’s Bugler’s Holiday. The recital also featured many of Olcott’s own works including Quartet No. 1 from his 14 Recreational Jazz Quartets and his new original march entitled The Standard which is based on Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto.
The second day featured 41 high school students attending a day-long festival filled with clinics, master classes, and rehearsals for the evening Finale Concert. Dr. Muntefering and Dr. Olcott presented clinics to the high school students focusing on breathing, tone production, and developing a basic concept of sound based on the musical situation. The full Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble presented a session on ensemble playing that concentrated on intonation, articulation, and ensemble balance. The Friday Finale Concert featured the Wartburg Trumpet Choir, TCTE, and the High School Festival Choir. The high school festival choir performed Antiphon for Trumpets by Stan Pethel along with Everett Gates’ Three Pieces and Three for Four by Vera Hørven and James Olcott. Along with their separate programs, the Wartburg Trumpet Choir and TCTE joined forces on David Turnbull’s arrangement of "Triumphal March" from Aida while all 68 trumpets in attendance closed the concert with Olcott’s original work for 24 trumpets entitled Evergreen Fanfare.
The main theme for the festival was the passion to keep playing trumpet as an avocation – members of TCTE work in the Twin Cities area in a number of professions including as a mailman, dentist, novelist, research geneticist, and video producer. Members of the Wartburg Trumpet Choir represent a wide variety of majors across the campus of Wartburg College including music education, actuarial science, pre-med, graphic design, pre-engineering, and pre-optometry. High school students were encouraged throughout the festival to continue their playing throughout their lives and support the arts in their communities.
Wartburg Trumpet Choir with Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble
Source: Dr. Scott Muntefering – Associate Professor/Eugene and Ruth Weidler Drape Distinguished Professor of Music Education (Wartburg College – Waverly, Iowa)