National Trumpet Competition

Texas A&M University Kingsville

KINGSVILLE, TEXAS (News Release) — The School of Music at Texas A&M University-Kingsville hosted the National Trumpet Competition on Friday, March 8, through Monday, March 11. This was the largest competition of its kind in the United States, and it brought to campus between 800 and 1,000 trumpet players from middle school through graduate students.

“Events like this are important for the School of Music because it allows us an opportunity to show case, not only the talent of our students and faculty, but also the university and the first-class facilities our students get to study in,” said Dr. Kyle Millsap, associate professor of trumpet and jazz.

“When the conference coordinator came for a site visit, her first reaction to the music building was to say ’90 percent of all music students in the USA will never see facilities as nice as these’,” Millsap added.

“Many events like this don’t come to our end of Texas for a variety of reasons. The more we host, the more attention we bring to the region and the more reasons we can provide for people to consider coming to South Texas,” he added. “That provides our students and region, more learning and cultural events to benefit from. In short, it shines a light on a part of Texas that gets largely overlooked and invites the rest of the country to come see what we can offer.”

“This is a competition I competed in as a student and I am excited to have my students compete in it now. I think it’s great that it can be here,” Millsap said.

There are nine current Texas A&M-Kingsville musicians competing: eight in the large trumpet ensemble division and one in the undergraduate solo competition. There are two Javelina alumni who are competing in the graduate solo division. A third alumnus is a high school band director in Port Isabel who is bringing students to compete in the high school ensemble division.

In the ensemble divisions alone, there 95 high school performers from 15 schools representing three states, Texas, Oklahoma and Oregon. There are 59 different universities represented in the small and large trumpet ensemble divisions. These universities are in 29 different states ranging from coast to coast and north to south. Adding in the other divisions, the state count may be closer to 40, Millsap said.

For more information visit the website at nationaltrumpetcomp.org.