Recommended Websites
Return to Resources IndexOrganizational Pages
The International Trombone Association
The ITA is a worldwide organization that serves the needs of trombonists young and old. By joining the ITA, you become a member of a community of professional and amateur performers, teachers and students, scholars, researchers and composers, manufacturers, publishers and libraries. Each time I visit this web site it keeps getting better. The ITA also sponsors the annual International Trombone Fesival (ITF).
Created by Richard Human, this journal is an excellent resource for trombonists. It contains informative articles, an online trombone chat area, a directory of trombonists, classified ads and a new database of orchestral trombone sections.
Hosted each Spring by the U.S. Army Band in Washington, D.C., this convention is second only to the International Trombone Festival. Best of all, everything is free!
The Minnesota Orchestra Zellmer Competition
Created in honor of the orchestra's long-time principal trombonist, Steven Zellmer, this annual competition offers a $5,000 grand prize for young tenor or bass trombonists seeking a professional symphony career.
Joseph Alessi, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, conducts a seminar every other year for 16 participants and 45 or more auditors. I was lucky enough to be a participant in 2007. For this seminar, I posted my written notes in the form of a blog.
Individual Pages (alphabetical)
Mr. Alessi, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, is one of the finest performers in the world today. His site includes biographical information, a discography, his schedule and publications.
Tom is a very active freelancer and teacher in the Atlanta area. He has both a website TromboneLessons.com and a very active video blog which he does with Colin Williams
Mr Friedman is the principal trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Especially helpful are his regular articles. You will find many pearls of wisdom here. I especially like his articles: How Can I Say it Clearer and a nice article about playing the Ride of the Valkyries.
Lindberg is the the most active trombone soloist today. He performs throughout the world and has a large number of solo CD's. This site presents professional information, including his schedule, recordings, preferred equipment, reviews and so on.
Mr. Stevens was the principal trombonist of the National Symphony Orchestra. This site includes handouts from various presentations he has done. I especially like Milts Beefs and Pet Peeves.
A well-designed and very complete web site for trombonists by the bass trombonist of the Boston Symphony. This site includes articles, a discography, Doug's schedule and so on. Doug has an excellent list of orchestral audition repertoire, including edited versions of some bass trombone excerpts in .pdf format. He also written a useful article on the process of symphony auditions.
Rich has written a very useful book, A Modern Guide for Trombonists and Other Musicians. You can find some helpful info on this site.
Other Useful Pages
Run by Seth T. Vatt, this is a fantastic new site which has reprints of excerpts and .mp3 files of many different performances of these passages.
Run by Renee Laanen, this site offers an exhaustive listing of trombonists throughout the world including biographies, email addresses and links to web pages. Mr. Laanen has even created hyperlinks within trombonist's biographies. A lot of work went into this project!
Fun Pages
This is a fun site by trombonist/filmmaker Steve Peterson. He has a lot of short, funny, sometimes edgy films. Definately worth a look.