Trumpet Festival of the Southeast

 

Atlanta, 1/14/2022: Earlier this month I was fortunate to attend the Trumpet Festival of the Southeast in Atlanta. The last time I attended the TFSE I was a grad student at Western Carolina University. This time around I attended as a vendor in my new job with Ponce de Leon Music Center. 

For this year's festival, I was charged with showing off some professional trumpet models from the Bach Stradivarius line. The manufacturing rep had sent us about a dozen different trumpets to show, but a shipping error meant that the trumpets would end up making it in time for the Festival. Luckily, we had a modest collection on hand, which I enjoyed packing up and driving into the city. Included in the selection, and the real head-turner during the festival, was the legendary "Chicago" C-trumpet. 

The real highlight for me was reconnecting with one of my trumpet mentors from my time at WCU, Dr. Ulrich. Dr. Ulrich was the brains behind the TFSE, which started at Western almost 2 decades ago. I also enjoyed meeting trumpet education professionals from across the region, as well as some luminaries from around the trumpet world.