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Smoky Mountain Brass Band History
[see also Brass Band History]
[see also British Brass Band History]
The Smoky Mountain Brass Band draws its membership
from throughout Western North Carolina. The
members, who represent a number of professions,
share a common passion of performing music
in a dynamic ensemble. They are true amateur
musicians in the sense that no one in the
band earns his/her livelihood as a performer.
The band was founded in April of 1981 by
Western Carolina University music professor
Richard Trevarthen and a small cadre of the
finest brass players in Western North Carolina.
As the story goes, a group from Haywood County
secured an arts grant for the purpose of
founding a community band. This core group
attended a weekend workshop promoting British-style
brass bands held at N.C. State University.
Workshop participants used a complete set
of brand new instruments provided by the
Yamaha Instrument Corporation. A Yamaha sales
representative announced during the first
day of the workshop that any group with a
charter to establish a brass band in hand
could lease to own a complete set of instruments
and that the company would waive the first
payment due for twelve months.
That night, over dinner in a Raleigh restaurant,
the Haywood County group drew up the initial
charter for the Smoky Mountain Brass Band.
They presented their charter the following
morning and left that afternoon, bringing
the very set of instruments from the workshop
with them in a rented U-Haul truck! A number
of these original instruments are still being
used by the band today.
Over the past twenty-six years the band has
performed many concerts throughout the area
as well as notable performances in Toronto,
Ontario, Pittsburgh, PA, Columbus, OH, the
Knoxville, TN World's Fair and the 1987 inaugural
ball of former North Carolina Governor Jim
Martin. The band won first place in Championship
category of the 1983 North American Brass
Band Association competition and hosted the
1989 competition in Asheville's Thomas Wolfe
Auditorium.
Mr. Trevarthen served as the band's first
artistic director and conductor until his
retirement in 1992. Haywood County native
Dr. Wayne Pressley, a long-time member of
the music faculty at Mars Hill College and
a charter member of the band, served as interim
conductor for several months until Dr. John
West accepted the baton later that same year.
Dr. West, who was director of bands at Western
Carolina University served until 1997 and
was succeeded as by Ken Kroesche, also on
the music faculty at Western Carolina University,
until December, 1998. Mark Clodfelter
assumed the position of Artistic Director
and Conductor of the Smoky Mountain Brass
Band in January, 1999. Mr. Clodfelter,
a trumpet instructor at Mars Hill College,
remained until June, 2002 when he accepted
a position on the music faculty at the University
of Kentucky and left Western North Carolina.
William Bryant, Director of Bands at A.C.
Reynolds High School in Asheville, stepped
to the podium in September, 2002. Four
years later, Dr. Bryant passed the baton
to Dr. John Entzi, Director of Bands at the
University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Dr. Entzi began his tenure as the band's
seventh director when rehearsals for the
26th season began in September, 2006. |
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