Jason Adams (B.M. 1993), studied Trumpet
Performance and Music Education at Hartt from 1988 to 1993. He is currently
living in Houston, TX.
What
have you been up to since you graduated from Hartt?
After Hartt, I took a stint playing
trumpet on a cruise ship, many thanks to Steve Davis for forcing me to
improvise a bit while I played in the Big Band at Hartt, he saved me from total
embarrassment! I then moved to NY and pursued a Master’s degree at the
Manhattan School of Music, studying with Chris Gekker, who was also my trumpet
teacher at Hartt, along with Roger Murtha. I owe these two men a lot! After
eight years as a band director in Massachusetts, where I also played with the
Springfield Symphony, I moved to Houston, Texas for family reasons and because
it is a wonderful place to teach and play music.
What
are you involved with right now?
I currently teach a large studio of
private students and play around Houston, Texas. I appear regularly with the
River Oaks Chamber Orchestra Brass Quintet and at the Co-Cathedral of the
Sacred Heart with the Cathedral Brass. I teach trumpet at San Jacinto College,
as well as in schools in the Spring, Klein, and Cypress-Fairbanks Independent
School Districts.
What
is one of your most memorable things about your time at Hartt?
Besides hanging out in the Millard
lobby with my friends and working for Walter Gibson moving racks of music
stands around the school, you mean? There are so many snapshots.
In my Freshman year, Dr. John
Feierabend telling all the performance majors who were also pursuing music
education “as a back-up plan in case performing didn’t work out” that they
needed to come up with another plan, ha!
Wednesday morning trumpet lessons with
Roger Murtha tapping tempo on the music stand with his pencil, and occasionally
on my arm if I wasn’t paying enough attention.
