BRASS FACULTY
FACULTY BY AREA
Bands
Brass
Choirs
Composition and Technology
Conducting
Jazz Studies
Keyboard
Music Education
Musicology
Orchestras
Percussion
Strings
Theory
Voice, and Opera
Woodwinds
Langston Fitzgerald III, trumpet
Lisa Bontrager, horn
Mark Lusk , trombone
Velvet Brown, tuba/euphonium
Dr. Langston Fitzgerald III, professor of trumpet at Penn State, played trumpet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 1970 to 2003. Fitzgerald has played extra with the National Symphony and performed as assistant principal trumpet with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He is principal trumpet and musical contractor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society Orchestra. In addition, he is first trumpet and founder of both the Giavanni and the Potomac brass quintets. His free-lancing in Baltimore and Washington has included performing at three presidential inaugurations and three "Christmas in Washington" nationally televised specials. He helped to contract and played co-principal trumpet at the nationally televised millennium celebration at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Prior to joining the Penn State faculty, Fitzgerald taught trumpet at Catholic University. He currently teaches at both the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Penn State. He was lecturer at the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland at College Park. Fitzgerald served as assistant professor of trumpet, coordinator of the brass department, and orchestra conductor at Howard University. He has also taught trumpet at Morgan State University, the Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, University of the District of Columbia, Towson State University, and Western Maryland College.
He is a graduate of Howard University (B.M.E.) and Catholic University of America (M.M. and D.M.A.). He is a member of the International Trumpet Guild and is on the board of the International Women's Brass Conference. Fitzgerald is also a member of the American Federation of Musicians in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
Lisa Ormston Bontrager is director of the Penn State Horn Studio. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Japan. Bontrager is currently active performing, touring and recording with Millennium Brass, the Brass Band of Battle Creek, the Pennsylvania Quintet, and MirrorImage, a horn duo with colleague Michelle Stebleton. As soloist/clinician for Holton horns, Bontrager has been featured at the Mid-West Band and Orchestra Clinic, New York Brass Conferences, the New England Brass Conference, and a number of international conferences of the International Horn Society. For six years she served as an elected member of the Advisory Council of the International Horn Society.
Distinctive because of her versatility, Bontrager has been recognized as one of the country's leading tenor horn players. She currently tours and records with both the Brass Band of Battle Creek and the New Columbian Brass Band. Performing on historic instruments, she has appeared in lectures and on video with Louis Stout's, "The Horn, from the Forest to the Concert Hall." She has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Chamber and Ballet Orchestras, the Chautauqua Symphony, the Aspen Festival and Chamber Orchestras, the Harrisburg Symphony, and the Penn's Woods Festival Orchestra. Presently, she serves as principal horn of the Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra
Bontrager holds performance degrees from the University of Michigan where she studied with Louis Stout. Appointed in 1985, she is currently Professor of Music at Penn State University where she teaches horn and directs the 18-member Horn Ensemble. Bontrager's first solo recording, Hunter's Moon, was released on the Summit Records label (www.summitrecords.com) in April 2002.
Click here for information on Lisa Bontrager's recordings
Mark Lancaster Lusk, Professor of Trombone, became a member of the Penn State faculty in 1986. Prior to his appointment, he enjoyed a varied career with such diverse groups as the Woody Herman Thundering Herd, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and the Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players.
He continues to have an active playing career as a soloist, clinician, and freelance musician. As a member of the Woody Herman Alumni Band, he has performed throughout the United States and abroad, including featured performances at jazz festivals in China, England, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, and Sweden. The two most recent recordings of the Woody Herman Alumni Band are entitled the "60th Jubilee" and "Live in London" and are available on the New York Jam label.
Professor Lusk has performed on Broadway in many shows, including the most recent production of "Little Women." The original cast album is currently available from Ghostlight Records. His successful career on Broadway has allowed him to play such memorable shows as "Les Miserable," "Phantom Of The Opera," "Sunset Boulevard," "Victor/Victoria," "Miss Saigon," and "Beauty and the Beast."
Professor Lusk performing and teaching has also taken him to South America. He has toured Chile as an artist/clinician, teaching and performing throughout the country, including a performance of Raymond Premru's "Concerto for Tuba" with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción and Robert Spillman’s “Concerto for Bass Trombone And Orchestra” with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile. Mr. Lusk was also invited to Argentina as an artist/clinician. His performance of this same work with the Orquesta Filharmónica de Buenos Aires was the first time a trombonist had been a soloist in the history of the Teatro Colon.
Each year Professor Lusk’s tours as a soloist and with various groups take him to numerous universities and schools of music across the United States. He has often performed at the New York Brass Conference, the Eastern Trombone Workshop, and the International Trombone Workshop where he was invited to conduct the William Cramer Memorial Trombone Ensemble of College Professors.
Mark Lancaster Lusk is a native of Brandenburg, Kentucky. He holds his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Eastman School of Music and a performance certificate from Northwestern University. Lusk is a clinician for the Selmer Instrument Company and is published by Lyceum Press, including the "Trombonist's Guide to the Unaccompanied Cello Suites of J. S. Bach."
Click here for more about Mark Lusk's recordings and publications
Click here for more about Mark Lusk and the trombone studio
Velvet Brown enjoys a professional career as an international soloist and chamber ensemble performer, recording artist, conductor, and orchestral player. She has made regular appearances throughout Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the United States. Brown has served as principal tubist with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra and as substitute or additional tubist with the Detroit Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Women's Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. She has garnered high praise as a member of the Monarch Brass Quintet and Brass Ensemble, the Junction Tuba Quartet, and the Garda Duo.
Brown was appointed to Penn State as professor of tuba and euphonium in fall 2003. Previously, she taught at Bowling Green State University and Ball State University, and served as an associate director of University Bands at Boston University. She has had many successful students who have been prize winners at various regional, national, and international competitions. Currently, she serves as secretary of the executive committee for the International Tuba and Euphonium Association (ITEA). She is also a board member of the International Women's Brass Conference. Brown is noted for receiving the 1999-2000 William Fulbright Fellowship Vinciguerra Award.
She has released two solo CDs: Velvet and Music for Velvet (Crystal Records). In addition, she has recorded music by the award-winning composer Neal Corwell for the Nicolai Music Label. Her interpretation of John William's Tuba Concerto can be heard on the Bowling Green Philharmonia's Composer's Voice -- Volume IV recording, which is forthcoming.
Click here for more information on Velvet Brown's recordings