Dr. John Marcellus

Music Director and Conductor, Brighton Symphony Orchestra

Professor of Trombone and Chairman of the Department of Brass, Winds and Percussion at the Eastman School of Music, John Marcellus holds a BS in Education from the University of Maryland and a Masters and Doctorate from the Catholic University of America. His teachers have included William F. Cramer, Lewis Van Haney, Edward Herman, Gordon Pulis, and Armand Sarro. His conducting teachers have included Richard Lert of the American Symphony Orchestra League and Lloyd Geisler of the National Symphony and Catholic University of America.

He has been a conductor of Rochester's Brighton Symphony Orchestra since 1980 and has been a guest conductor at the National Music Camp, Interlochen; U.S. Naval Academy Band; Chautauqua Wind Ensemble; and the Penfield (NY) Symphony Orchestra. Formerly, he was soloist with the United States Navy Band (Washington) and a trombonist with the Baltimore and Jacksonville Symphonies. He was Principal Trombone with the National Symphony Orchestra for 13 years.

He has been a soloist and chamber musician with the National Symphony Brass Quintet, Washington Theater Chamber Players, and the Contemporary Music Forum and has performed solo recitals in London, Paris, Cologne, Stuttgart, Birmingham, Manchester, Tokyo, Osaka, and Trossingen. Other solo appearances have included the International Brass Congress, Switzerland (1976); Eastern Trombone Workshop (1973 to present); Eastern Music Festival; National Symphony; Norfolk Chamber Orchestra; and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

John Marcellus has premiered numerous contemporary works for trombone and for trombone ensemble, and he is a clinician for the United Musical Instruments Company of Elkhart, Indiana. He has been Co-director of the Eastern Trombone Workshop and the Marcellus-Melick Trombone Ensemble since 1974, and he was the Director/Host of the International Trombone Workshop in 1991 at the Eastman School of Music. He is also a founding Board member and past president of the International Trombone Association.

His articles have been published by the NACWPI Journal, Instrumentalist, ITA Journal, and Accent, and his arrangements have been published by Kendor and Belwin-Mills. He has recorded for London/Decca, Nonesuch, Library of Congress, Turnabout, Opus One, Stolat, Sine Qua Non, and as solo Euphonium with the Non Parielle Band and the All-American Main Street Band on Capital-EMI.

He has been a faculty member at the North Carolina School of the Arts (1965-68), Catholic University (1966-78), Howard University (1967-70), American University (1968-78), Interlochen Arts Academy (1982-83), Chautauqua School of Music (1979 to present) and at the Eastman School of Music (1978 to present).

John Marcellus was honored for his outstanding career as a musician and educator in April, 1997 by the New York Brass Conference for Scholarships at their Silver Jubilee Brass Conference in New York City.