August 2, 2011
Summer of music: Trumpet professor has busy summer with camps, classes and conferences
Gary Mortenson, professor and head of the department of music, maintained a busy schedule of performing and teaching between May and July.
He attended the 2011 International Trumpet Guild Conference in Minneapolis in late May with 12 members of the K-State Trumpet Ensemble. The ensemble premiered "Within Sacred Walls" by Erik Morales at the conference. Mortenson serves on the guild's board of directors and coordinated the efforts of the editorial and production staff of the ITG Journal to prepare the conference report for publication in the October 2011 issue.
Mortenson served on the faculty of the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Mich., from late June to early July. He has served as a member of the trumpet faculty for 27 years. While at the camp he taught trumpet to 16 students and performed with the Blue Lake Festival Band and Orchestra.
In late July, Mortenson performed, taught and conducted at the fifth International China Trumpet Week in Shenyang, China. He was invited to give the closing address at the conference by Zhonghui Dai, president of the China Trumpet Guild and professor of trumpet at Central Conservatory in Beijing. While in Shenyang, Mortenson gave a master class to several hundred trumpet students from China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S. During the faculty trumpet ensemble concert, he performed on four selections and conducted five.
Mortenson has served on the music department at K-State since the fall of 1989. He has been the department head since January 2007.
(Photo: Gary Mortenson coaches a graduate student during a master class at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music on July 23.)