Something I have in Common with J. D. Shaw
We had a special guest in our studio class on Wednesday at Arizona State: hornist J. D. Shaw. This fall he joined the faculty of the University of New Mexico as Assistant Professor of Horn, having previously toured for 15 years with the Boston Brass [video here]. He has done more things than can be easily recounted after his class! It was an extremely interesting session focusing on the path his career has taken.
I have never had an extended conversation with J. D. but have been interested to meet him for years as we share a few things in our background. I am enough older that we never were in school together but we are both from Kansas, we both studied with Nicholas Smith and with Verne Reynolds, and we both were awarded the Performers Certificate at Eastman. After that we diverge a bit but both of us have an interest in types of early valved horns and brass quintets and orchestral playing and basically all things brass.
But going back to our actual roots as horn players, we have one very important thing in common; we both switched to the horn in high school and our high school band directors were both horn players. Getting that good start is not a new topic but is so important that it cannot be emphasized enough. I wish there were more horn players out there in the ranks of music educators giving those good starts to horn players.
Shaw visited Arizona actually for other reasons besides our horn studio class, relating to his show writing and work with athletic bands, as besides being Assistant Professor of horn he is Assistant Marching Band Director at UNM, drawing on his extensive experience with Phantom Regiment. We at Horn Matters welcome him to the southwest!
Be a 
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