Barbara Hull

Trumpet

DMA & MM (Eastman School of Music), BMus (Houghton College)

University of Nevada — Assistant Professor in Residence
San Franciso Wind Ensemble — Co-Principal Trumpet
Ensemble Monterey — Principal Trumpet
CSSM Since 1986

Barbara Hull holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Trumpet Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with James Thompson and was Assistant Conductor of the Eastman Brass Guild. She earned her Masters Degree at Eastman in the studio of Charles Geyer. She is a recipient of the Eastman Performer's Certificate, and, as winner of Eastman's Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Concerto Competition, performed as soloist with the Eastman Wind Ensemble under Donald Hunsberger. Barbara also served as principal trumpet of the Eastman Wind Ensemble during a collaboration between the EWE and the Canadian Brass. The CD for that project, Manhattan Music, was released in 2008.

Barbara is Assistant-Professor-in-Residence in studio trumpet at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Before joining the faculty at UNLV she lived in Rochester, NY where she taught applied trumpet and brass at Nazareth College and was a member of Symphoria (formerly the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra). She also played regularly with the Skaneateles Summer Music Festival, Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Oratorio Society and the Kunde Chorale. From 2008 through 2013, she taught at the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. Barbara also teaches trumpet and music theory each summer at the Csehy Summer School of Music.

Barbara was Principal Trumpet with the Albany Symphony Orchestra from 1995-1998, recording with the orchestra under the Decca and Albany Records labels. She played with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra from 2000-2003. While living in Albuquerque, she also performed regularly with the New Mexico Brass Quintet, the New Mexico Symphony Brass Quintet, the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, and Opera Southwest. She has also performed with the Rochester Philharmonic and Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Hull is co-principal trumpet with the San Francisco Wind Ensemble and performs as principal trumpet with Ensemble Monterey.  She has also performed with the Modesto Symphony, Fremont Symphony and the Grass Valley Music Festival. Barbara’s work has also included masterclasses with Barbara Butler, Vincent Cichowicz , Allen Vizzutti, Mark Gould and Niklas Eklund. 

One of Barbara's earliest and most influential teachers was the late James Burke, who served for 28 years as cornet soloist with the Edwin Franko Goldman Band. Jimmy was one of the last virtuoso cornetists of the twentieth century. During her studies with him, Barbara concentrated on the cornet style of playing embodied in Arban’s Complete Conservatory Method. Ms. Hull was one of the last students to study with Burke before his death and counts it a rare privilege to have studied with such a master. 

Barbara completed her undergraduate work at Houghton College, where she earned the B.Mus. degree and studied with Dr. Harold McNiel. Other instructors include Mark Gould, Robert Earley, Niklas Eklund, and David Kuehn. 

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"Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.  ...

O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest,
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain--thou movest, drawest, changest them at will."

          —From Walt Whitman’s The Mystic Trumpeter