Renowned trumpeters David Bilger, Billy Hunter, and Anthony Prisk—each an acclaimed performer—will join the Peabody faculty beginning in the 2019–20 academic year. Their team approach to leading the Peabody trumpet studio will offer students the opportunity to learn from three master teachers.
Hailed by The New York Times for his playing of "easy brilliance," Bilger has held the position of principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1995 and, before that, held the same position with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Houston Symphony, and others. He is currently on the music faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music, Northwestern University, and Temple University, and was formerly a faculty member of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia.
He has performed master classes at dozens of institutions, including the Juilliard School, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Peabody Conservatory. He has also taught at the Pacific Music Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and most recently at the Hamamatsu International Festival and Academy. Bilger holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Illinois.
Hunter has been principal trumpet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2004 and has appeared as guest principal trumpet with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and the Chineke Orchestra in London. He has appeared as a soloist and recitalist across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and won two Grammy Awards for playing in MET Opera performances of John Adams' Doctor Atomic and Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle.
Hunter has given master classes at the Curtis Institute, the Juilliard School, and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, among others. A frequent coach for the New York Youth Symphony and the National Youth Orchestra, he is on faculty at NJCU and the Manhattan School of Music. Hunter holds a Bachelor of Music in trumpet performance from University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Music in trumpet performance from the Juilliard School.
Prisk joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as second trumpet in 2013; previously he was a member of the Houston Symphony for 11 seasons. He has performed internationally with orchestras and music festivals, among them the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, and the New World Symphony, and he is the winner of two international trumpet competitions through the International Trumpet Guild. He has served on the faculty at the University of Houston and presented master classes at the New World Symphony, the University of Texas, Baylor University, Bowling Green State University, Northwestern University, and Iowa State University, among others.
Prisk received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Illinois and his Master of Music degree at McGill University. He completed a fellowship with the New World Symphony.
Bilger, Hunter, and Prisk will succeed longtime faculty artist and former member of the Canadian Brass Joe Burgstaller. Under Burgstaller's leadership, the trumpet studio at Peabody has become known for its focus on holistic artistic development, preparing students for success in today's music world.
They join a diverse roster of artist-faculty colleagues charged with implementation of the Peabody Conservatory's new Breakthrough Curriculum in Performing Arts Leadership, a model at the forefront of arts training in the United States. The Breakthrough Curriculum is designed to help students develop skills in performance excellence, career development, and citizen artistry to meet the demands of today's ever-changing musical landscape. This includes a reimagined instrumental ensembles program in which students move through a rotation of varied ensemble experiences to ensure musical flexibility and training across a range of performing contexts, musical styles, and ensemble configurations.
More from the Peabody Institute
Judah Adashi, a composer and faculty artist, released Love Into Concrete as a musical response to Baltimore Ceasefire's Sacred Space Rituals. The piece, released on May 1, was performed by doctoral candidate Lior Willinger and dedicated to Erricka Bridgeford, co-organizer of Baltimore Ceasefire.
Serap Bastepe-Gray, a Peabody faculty artist with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine, was featured in the April 2019 edition of She Shreds magazine in an article titled "A Seat at the Table: The Women in Higher Guitar Education." It noted her work as a co-founder of the JHU Center for Music and Medicine, her creation of the online class Playing Well, her coaching and direction of the Conservatory's guitar ensemble program, and her work in the design and development of the prototype SmartGuitar as a tool for research and guitar pedagogy. The article cited her as a "standout, innovative educator ... applying her unique expertise in both music and occupational therapy."
Maria Lambros, a violist and faculty artist, released a recording of the two Brahms viola quintets with the New Zealand Quartet on Naxos Records in February. She also recently launched Our Joyful Noise Baltimore, a nonprofit organization that presents a series of concerts featuring professional musicians in a veterans shelter, a women's prison, and a cancer treatment residence, and for people living with autism in the Baltimore community.
Joe Rooney, an accomplished nonprofit executive, has joined Peabody as associate dean for finance and administration. With more than 20 years of experience as both chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Rooney most recently served as deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. While there, he managed the program's strategic planning and operational excellence efforts, improved finance and business processes, streamlined human resources management, and served on or led several institutionwide initiatives. He previously was the chief operating officer of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals and served as both the chief financial officer and vice president for the New 42nd Street, the organization responsible for the adaptive reuse of eight historic theaters in New York City. He began his career at Baltimore Center Stage, including several years as director of operations.
Joseph Young, Peabody's Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Artistic Director of Peabody Ensembles, has been named Berkeley Symphony's next music director. He takes on his new responsibilities with the California-based Berkeley Symphony in the 2019–20 season, while continuing his duties at Peabody.
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