by Douglas Yeo (April 2, 2024)
I’ve been playing the trombone for 60 years. I started on the instrument when I was nine years old, in 1964, and while my end is nearer than my beginning, I never think of myself as “getting older.” Life is a steady rhythm of engaging activities, individual and shared activities, and the blessing of regularly being with family members and friends.
The International Trombone Association was founded in 1972 and I joined it in that same year. I was a senior in high school at the time and in those days, I ordered a lot of trombone music from Robert King Music Sales in North Easton, Massachusetts. Since I didn’t have a checking account at the time, I used to send cash or stamps to Robert King to pay for the music I ordered. That was a different time than today, for sure. In one order of music I received, a flyer about the newly formed International Trombone Association was enclosed, I joined right away (I probably sent cash or stamps for my first membership fee, too), and I’ve been a member ever since. I guess you could say I’m a founding member of the ITA. Over the last 52 years, I’ve been involved in the ITA in a lot of the ways. I’ve written dozens of articles for the ITA Journal, I’ve served on ITA committees (Governance Committee, Board of Advisors), I’ve been a guest artist at many International Trombone Festivals (held in Nashville, TN 1982, Potsdam NY 1999, Ithaca NY 2004, Columbus GA 2013, Redlands CA 2017, Iowa City 2018, Conway, AR 2022, and the upcoming ITF in Fort Worth, TX), and I’ve adjudicated many of the ITA’s annual competitions.
When it was founded in 1972, the International Trombone Association instituted an annual award, the ITA Award. It was given to one trombonist each year in recognition of “an elite level of creative and artistic activity.” The first recipient was Henry Romersa, founder of the International Trombone Workshop (now the International Trombone Festival). The list of recipients over the last 52 years reads like a who’s-who of notable trombonists including Lewis Van Haney (second trombonist of the New York Philharmonic and trombone professor at Indiana University, 1973), Robert King (1975), Thomas Everett (founder of the ITA, retired professor, Harvard University, 1980), George Roberts (the great Hollywood studio bass trombonist, 1983), the great jazz trombonists Urbie Green (1985) and J. J. Johnson (1988), my teacher, friend, and mentor, Edward Kleinhammer (bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1986), Christian Lindberg (1991) and Joseph Alessi (2002), bass trombonist Ben van Dijk (2003), my Boston Symphony Orchestra colleague Ronald Barron (2005), David Taylor (the great New York based bass trombonist, 2016), my “brother from another mother,” jazz giant Wycliffe Gordon, and Megumi Kanda (principal trombonist of the Milwaukee Symphony, 2020). All of these people have shaped my life; many are friends; others have been trombone heroes of mine.
Douglas Yeo and Ronald Barron, International Trombone Festival, Eastman School of Music, 2014
In 2014, I received the ITA Award and was inducted into this Pantheon of trombonists. It was a tremendous honor and I received it at the International Trombone Festival held at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. One of the things that made my receiving the ITA Award at that time was the fact that my friend and colleague from my years as a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Ronald Barron, received the ITA’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the same time.
The ITA’s Lifetime Achievement Award was one of several awards established by the ITA several years after its founding in order to give recognition to deserving individuals. The first of these new awards was the Neill Humfeld Award for Excellence in Trombone Teaching, established in 1997 (the 2024 recipient of the Neill Humfeld Award is Abbie Conant; the 2024 recipient of the ITA Award is John Fedchock). The Neill Humfeld Award was followed by the Lifetime Achievement Award (established in 2007 to recognize individuals “who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to the trombone profession over a long career”), and the Legacy Circle Award (also established in 2007 and usually recognizes deceased individuals “who have made a profound and lasting impact on the evolution of trombone playing or teaching”). Among recipients of the Legacy Circle Award are Arthur Pryor, Emory Remington, Jack Teagarden, Al Grey, Russell Moore, Bill Watrous, Keith Brown, Joannès Rochut, Lillian Briggs, and Dorothy Ziegler). The 2024 recipient of the ITA Legacy Circle award is John Swallow who was a member of the New York Brass Quintet for many years and with whom I taught alongside at New England Conservatory of Music.
Last week, I was informed that I have been selected to be a 2024 recipient of the International Trombone Association’s Lifetime Achivement Award. My friend, trombonist Benny Sluchin, was also named a recipient of the ITA’s Lifetime Achivement Award and we will accept our awards at the upcoming International Trombone Festival at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. It is a very special feeling to be recognized by ones’ peers for accomplishments over a lifetime. And it will be very special to accept the Award at TCU, where David Begnoche—who was a student at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston when I was teaching there—is trombone professor and host of the Festival, and my friend Ronald Barron and I will play a duet with the TCU trombone choir. Other connections abound: David Yacus, who studied bass trombone with me at New England Conservatory of Music and is now one of the leading sackbut players in the world, will be performing at the Festival. So will my good friend and fellow ITA Award recipient David Taylor. Benny Sluchin has been so helpful to me in various research projects, including my upcoming presentation at the ITF about Joannès Rochut (the presentation is the basis for an article about Rochut that I am writing for the ITA Journal that will be published in early 2025). Benny lives in Paris and we don’t get to see each other very often, so it will be great to see him at the Festival.
Announcement of the International Trombone Association 2024 Lifetime Achivement Award recipients (ITA Facebook page)
I’m very grateful to be recognized in this way—it is not lost on me that I am one of only a few individuals to have received both the ITA Award and the ITA’s Lifetime Achivement Award, a group that includes Edward Kleinhammer, George Roberts, and Ronald Barron—but, in fact, I would not be receiving this award were it not for the hundreds and hundreds of friends, colleagues, and teachers whose lives have intersected with mine. I am a blessed man to have worked, talked, and interacted with so many engaging artists/musicians/trombonists since I started playing the trombone 60 years ago. My students at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison, New Jersey, Peabody Institute in Baltimore, at New England Conservatory of Music, Arizona State University, Wheaton College, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have also made a profound impact on me. In a sense, the names of all of these individuals are pencilled in on my Lifetime Achievement Award certificate because without them, I would not be who I am today, I would not have lived the life I have lived, and I certainly would not have made the contributions to the world of the trombone were it not for them informing, encouraging, and challenging me. I say the same for my family, my wife of 49 years, Patricia, our daughters and sons-in-law, and our grandchildren. They have been supportive, patient, caring, and loving through all of my activities. I thank God for all of you.
If you’re going to be at the International Trombone Festival at TCU next month, I look forward to seeing you there. Four days of all trombone, all the time. Sounds pretty good to me!
Biography of Douglas Yeo from the International Trombone Association website, April 2024. In the photo that accompanies this bio and the ITA Facebook announcement of 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, I am holding a buccin (dragon bell trombone, made in the 19th century) during a recital I gave at the Hamamatsu (Japan) Museum of Musical Instruments. The International Trombone Association adopted the buccin as its logo, based on a buccin owned by New England Conservatory of Music.
The Last Trombone – Douglas Yeo 