Thursday, July 31, 2014

5 Questions with Jason Adams



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.