My job is to become obsolete.

I say that to my students, and I mean it. A lesson lasts an hour or so; the rest of the week, you are on your own in the practice room. A teacher merely gives information. It is your job to put that knowledge into practice. So the most important thing I can teach you is how to teach yourself.

Technically, I want to provide a physically efficient and musically neutral mechanism. Musically, my goal is to help you understand how to make good musical decisions for that technique to execute. These concepts are not for individual pieces you work on but can be universally applied to everything you play.

By learning how to listen honestly, eventually you will be able to figure out what is really going on, and fix it. Every lesson should leave you needing me a little less. When you don’t need me at all, I’ve done my job — though I hope you’ll still call and tell me how it’s going.

Twenty-five years as Professor of Trumpet at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have made teaching as central to my work as performing, but it started long before that. I owe so much to my own childhood teachers — most notably Jim Metzger and David Rentschler, back home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania — that helping the next generation of players and teachers has been a vital part of my career from the very beginning. I was also trained by premier orchestral players, and my years as one of Boston’s busiest private teachers of young musicians shaped the way I teach as much as anything.

Most importantly, my goal is to feed your love of music and facilitate your ability to enjoy making music at whatever level you desire. My approach can best be summed up by my article “What to Do If Your Students Don’t Practice,” which was published in both the International Trumpet Guild Journal and The Brass Herald. My promise is to be actively engaged with you for the entire time we are together, helping you along whatever path you choose. The rest is up to you!

Private Lessons — In Person and by Zoom

I teach in person at my studio in western Massachusetts, and I’m thoroughly set up for lessons over Zoom. Distance is no longer an obstacle: wherever you are, you can work with me regularly, come for a single consultation before an audition, or book a short series to work on one specific problem.

I build every lesson around what you actually need, in that moment. It is not a cookie-cutter approach. However, during your time with me we typically cover:

• Understanding the basic physics of how we do what we do
• Fundamentals delivered simply
• Efficiency and endurance — using the above to make sure you don’t fight the instrument
• Orchestral excerpts and audition preparation
• Solo and recital repertoire, from the standard literature to brand-new works
• College and conservatory audition preparation
• Career advice for students and young professionals

Young players are especially welcome. For the first ten years of my career I made my living teaching privately — at its height sixty students a week, from fourth-grade beginners through high school — and I still think of that as the work that shaped me most. A young mind that has not yet saddled music with the weight of a career is a sponge, thirsty and open to whatever a teacher has to offer, and there is little more satisfying than being part of that discovery.

I also welcome college and conservatory students looking for a different perspective alongside their own teacher, adult amateurs and returning players, and band and orchestra directors who want to sharpen their own playing or get help with a section. To see open times and book, use the online calendar. Questions are welcome at majesty@majesticbrass.com or through the contact page.

How Lessons Work

Every lesson is recorded, and the recording is yours to keep. I have done this since 2001, when it meant handing over a CD at the end of the hour — one former student still keeps the binder of them on his office shelf. On video it is more useful still: you can go back and watch the moment a problem was solved, as many times as it takes, instead of trying to remember it a week later. It is one more way of making myself obsolete.

I don’t have a single method. I build the approach around the player in front of me. Some students need to be talked through a problem, some need to see it, and some need help getting out of their own way before anything else can happen.

Thirty-five years of teaching have given me a wealth of ideas that are not in general circulation. The constant search for a solution that fits one particular player is the most creative and satisfying part of my work, and it is where those ideas come from — a problem no standard answer solves, and a fix built for the person in front of me.

Rates

Online lesson, 60 minutes by Zoom — $125. In-person lesson, 90 minutes at my studio in western Massachusetts — $150. Masterclasses and residencies are quoted on request. Students outside the United States are welcome; the booking calendar shows times in your own time zone.

If you’re new, start with a free 15-minute Zoom call so we can talk through your goals before the first lesson.

Audition Preparation

My audition advice is not theory. I have been a finalist for Principal Trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, reached the final four for Principal Trumpet of the San Francisco Symphony and the final two for Principal Trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony, and been a finalist at the Boston Symphony Orchestra on several occasions. In 2018 I served as a finals judge at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, one of the most prestigious solo competitions in the world for trumpet. I have also served on numerous audition committees for orchestra positions. I know the process from both sides.

Audition lessons cover list planning and pacing, excerpt-by-excerpt work, mock auditions behind a screen, recorded prescreen preparation, and the mental side of playing for a committee. For college and conservatory candidates, that also means repertoire choice, school selection, and the recording itself.

Student Success

Both of my Massachusetts high school students earned places in the All-State ensembles in 2026 — one of them as principal trumpet of the All-State Orchestra, followed by a summer at Interlochen.

That is the recent end of a long record. My students have won the Graduate Division of the National Trumpet Competition, the largest competition for trumpeters in the world, and have placed second in the Undergraduate Division and third in the Jazz Division, with semi-finalists in every division year after year. My trumpet ensembles have reached the national quarter-finals and semi-finals repeatedly, placed fourth in the country, and performed at the Schagerl Festival in Melk, Austria. At the International Trumpet Guild — the only international organization for trumpeters, with more than five thousand members — my students have taken second place in the Solo Competition, reached the semi-finals of the Orchestral Excerpts Competition, and won scholarships every year, as many as nine in a single season. Others have been named to the National Collegiate Honor Band.

They go on to the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the University of North Texas, Indiana University, the University of Southern California and Boston University, among others. Among those already working: tenure-track professors, members of the premier military bands in Washington, orchestral players throughout the Northeast and abroad, and many who have built careers on their own terms. More than one hundred of my former students are performing and teaching today, and very nearly all of my music education graduates have been placed in school systems across the Northeast. That is what becoming obsolete looks like.

A Lineage of Teachers

My principal teachers were Charles Schlueter, former Principal Trumpet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Thomas Rolfs, Principal Trumpet of the Boston Symphony; Vincent Penzarella, former Second Trumpet of the New York Philharmonic; Frank Kaderabek, former Principal Trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra; Robert Nagel, soloist and founder of the New York Brass Quintet; and Mario Guarneri, Principal Trumpet of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. I hold a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance from the New England Conservatory and was a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center and of the Music Academy of the West.

That lineage is not a list of names on a résumé. Each of those players solved the instrument’s problems differently, and I draw on all of them rather than on a single method. My father taught me that the smartest man in the world is not the person who knows all of the answers — he is the one who knows who to ask. I am still asking.

Teaching from the Stage

I have been Principal Trumpet of the Albany Symphony Orchestra since 1998 and a member of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project since 1995, and I also hold positions with the Colorado Music Festival and the Berkshire Opera Festival. I have played with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Baltimore Symphony, and have served as Guest Principal of the Saint Louis Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic and as Acting Principal of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de la República Dominicana. I appear on more than 135 commercially released recordings, among them Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated albums, and have premiered dozens of new works, many of them written for me. What I bring into a lesson has usually been tested in a rehearsal or a performance that same week.

Masterclasses and Residencies

I have given masterclasses and clinics at the Eastman School of Music, the Yale School of Music, McGill University, Ithaca College, the University of North Texas, Baylor University, Texas Tech University, Oklahoma City University, California State University Long Beach, Virginia Commonwealth University, Gardner-Webb University, Boston University, and the Longy School of Music. Abroad, I have taught at the Sibelius Academy and the Turku Conservatory in Finland, at the Pernambuco Brass Festival in Recife, Brazil, and at the Association of Brazilian Trumpeters Conference. I am a frequent presenter at state music education conferences, including the New Hampshire All-State Conference and the New York State School Music Association Conference.

More

My published writing on practice and teaching — the Practice Space series, the Eric Berlin’s Workshop columns from The Brass Herald, and articles in the International Trumpet Guild Journal — is collected on the Articles page.