The Group
David Ammer
Trumpet
In addition to his work as a founding member of the Motor City Brass Quintet, David Ammer is also principal trumpet of both the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra and the Detroit Opera House Orchestra, as well as a member of the award-winning Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, with whom he has been featured as soloist. During the summer, he performs as principal trumpet of the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas. He has performed alongside the Canadian Brass as well as the brass section of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, both in recital and in concert, at Orchestra Hall. He has performed on live television at Detroit Tigers’ baseball games, and has recorded several commercial studio sessions in the Detroit area. Additional summer chamber music performances include those at the Aspen Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Spoleto USA. Originally from Massachusetts, David played with the Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra and served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Boston prior to relocating in Michigan. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Yale University, he studied extensively with chamber brass pioneers Raymond Mase and Allan Dean. His solo cd, La Trompette a Renouvelé!, features premiere recordings of 20th century recital works, and was released by Brassjar Music in 2011.
Derek Lockhart
Trumpet
Derek Lockhart earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan and continued his education at the Manhattan School of Music. As a member of the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, Mr. Lockhart has toured South America, Israel, Monaco and France. He is a founding member of New World Brass, with whom he recorded Ingolf Dahl’s Music for Brass Instruments on the Argo label. Mr. Lockhart worked as a private instructor and chamber music coach for the Empire Brass Quintet’s seminar at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, Massachusetts. He most recently performed in concert with the Empire Brass Quintet in Italy and Australia. He has performed as Principal Trumpet with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and as Assistant Principal Trumpet with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Lockhart regularly performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings and spends his summers in Topeka, Kansas and Boulder, Colorado performing as a member of the Sunflower and Colorado Music Festivals.
Andrew Pelletier
French Horn
Andrew Pelletier is a soloist and Grammy-award winning chamber musician regularly performing across the United States. Of his solo playing, John Henken of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “gleaming, handsome playing. Pelletier is a soloist who seems capable of anything on his instrument.” Fanfare Magazine called him “Phenomenal…undeniably in tune with what he plays” and the American Record Guide has praised his “full sound and playing with authority and imagination.” He is the First Prize winner of the 1997 and 2001 American Horn Competition (America’s only internationally recognized competition for the horn) and has appeared as a soloist at the International Horn Society Annual Symposia in 1997, 2003, 2005 and 2009. He is in regular demand for artistic residencies and clinics at universities and music schools and his solo tours have taken him to 22 US states, Canada, Mexico and England. Dedicated to new music and the collaboration between performer and composer, he has commissioned and premiered aver 20 new works for the horn as a solo voice. An active chamber musician, he performs with Southwest Chamber Music in California (with whom he won the 2005 Grammy award for Best Classical Recording, Small Ensemble), the Motor City Brass Quintet and has performed with the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and with Chamber Music at the Scarab Club, Detroit.
As an orchestral performer, he is the principal horn of the Michigan Opera Theatre at the Detroit Opera House and the Ann Arbor Symphony, and has performed as guest principal horn for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (under Music Director Gustavo Dudamel) and the Windsor (Canada) Symphony and is the former principal horn for the Santa Barbara Symphony, Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre, Columbus Bach Ensemble, Long Beach Camerata, Maine Chamber Ensemble and Portland (Maine) Ballet. A regular performer with the Detroit and Toledo Symphonies; he has also performed with the New West Symphony, Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra (for six seasons) and is a founding member of the Portland Opera Repertory Theatre. He spent almost a decade as an active free-lance performer in Los Angeles and can be heard on film soundtracks as Battle: Los Angeles, Your Highness, Lethal Weapon 4, The X-Men, Frequency and various television movies for Lifetime TV and the Sci-Fi Channel. His pedagogical articles have been published by the International Horn Society, the Texas Band Master’s Association and the New York Brass Conference. He holds a B.M. degree from the University of Southern Maine, and an M.M. and the D.M.A. (both granted with Highest Honors) from the University of Southern California. His primary teachers are John Boden, James Decker and trumpeter Roy Poper. He has recorded for MSR Classics, Cambria Master Classics and Delos labels. Pelletier serves as the Associate Professor of Horn at the Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts, in Bowling Green, Ohio.
Jacob Cameron
Tuba
Tubist Jacob Cameron has taught at universities throughout the United States and has led an active performing career. As a soloist, Cameron was the Artist Division winner of the 1996 Leonard Falcone International Tuba Competition, a second place winner of the Lansing Matinee Musical Orchestral Brass Competition and a national finalist for both the high school and collegiate brass divisions of the MTNA solo competition. Large ensemble experience includes performances with the Blue Ash Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, Cincinnati Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Lansing Symphony, Lebanon Symphony, Orchestra X, Richmond Symphony (IN), Saginaw Bay Symphony, Springfield Symphony (OH), West Michigan Symphony and the Wilmington Symphony. An active chamber musician, he has performed with the Buerkle Brass, Canterbury Brass, Michigan Chamber Brass, Pamlico Sound , Today’s Brass Quintet, the Queen City Brass and is a current member of the Motor City Brass Quintet, Western Brass Quintet, and Spectrum Brass.
Cameron is currently Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Western Michigan University, where he leads the School of Music entrepreneurial activities in addition to teaching, recruiting, and performing with the Western Brass Quintet. Cameron is also on faculty at the Bay View Music Festival, where he helped create the Spectrum Brass Seminar, and he has has held teaching positions at Calvin College, Cornerstone University, East Carolina University, Grand Valley State University, and Wright State University.
Cameron received his M.M. in Tuba Performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and his B.M. in Tuba Performance from Michigan State University, where he is currently pursing his DMA. His primary teachers are David E. Kirk and Phil Sinder.
John Rutherford
Trombone / Euphonium / Bass Trumpet / Tuba
John Rutherford, one of Detroit’s most diverse musicians, has been a leading freelance trombonist for over twenty-five years. He studied at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music and The University of Michigan School of Music. He has been on the faculty of Oakland and Madonna Universities, and has also held teaching positions at the University of Toledo, Albion College, and Henry Ford Community College.
John has performed extensively and recorded with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Michigan Opera Theatre. He has performed with the Sarasota Opera Company, Jerusalem International Symphony, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Palermo (Sicily), the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra, and at the Santo Domingo Music Festival in the Dominican Republic. He has also served as guest principal trombonist of New York State’s Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
An active chamber musician, John has performed with the Boston Chamber Ensemble, Detroit Chamber Winds, Spectrum Brass Quintet, and he is the founding member of the Motor City Brass Quintet, whose 2009 debut CD features the premier recording of Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison’s Christmas Vespers. He has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet) for Sony Classical, as part of the Silk Road Project. With the Silk Road Ensemble, John toured a large part of North America, including performances at Carnegie Hall.
He has appeared as soloist on multiple occasions with the Motor City Brass Band, a British-style brass band, and the Grosse Pointe and Birmingham-Bloomfield Symphony Orchestras. He spent 12 summers as an artist-in-residence with Spectrum Brass at the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, MI, where he ran the Spectrum Seminar for talented college-age musicians.
John also performs with many of Detroit’s leading jazz ensembles. He performs on tenor trombone, bass trombone, and tuba for pit orchestras at many theaters in Michigan and Ohio and has played in bands and orchestras for artists including The Who, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Ray Charles, Pat Metheny, Jimmy Heath, Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, George Russell, Christian McBride, Wallace Roney, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, Arturo Sandoval, Patti Austin, Debbie Gibson, Shara Worden/My Brightest Diamond, Andrew Dost/Fun, The Fifth Dimension, and Dennis DeYoung of Styx.
John is the founding member of the Motor City Horns (MCH), who joined Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in 2006 and have toured and recorded with them since that time. The Motor City Horns have appeared on over 50 commercial recordings and have collaborated with Robert Randolph and The Family Band, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Clarence Clemons and the Temple of Soul, The Verve Pipe, Frankie Ballard, Carl Craig and Tribe, and frequently with Alexander Zonjic. With Zonjic, the MCH have shared the stage with many well-known artists, including Bob James, Jeff Lorber, and Kenny G. The Motor City Horns toured France with Detroit Bluesman Johnnie Bassett (and Thornetta Davis) in 2009 and can be heard on his recordings on Mack Avenue Records. John has recorded for radio and television commercials at studios in Detroit, Nashville, Los Angeles, and is a voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs).
As founder of Brass Jar Music, John has contracted musicians and produced musical groups for a variety of events in Michigan and around the world, most notably for Mercedes-Benz/AMG at the 2012 New York International Auto Show and other Mercedes events in New York, New Mexico, Tennessee, Montana, California, and Washington. Partnering with Executive Travel & Incentives, his groups have performed in the Bahamas, Cancun, Miami, Scottsdale, Park City, and at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. As a record label, Brass Jar Music has released six CDs featuring Detroit musicians, with two of them receiving Grammy consideration. He established a non-profit, The Rock City Music Foundation, with Jim Dailey in 2016, to provide musical education and instruments for students in need. He is co-owner of the world famous Cadieux Café in Detroit.
David Everson
Horn
David Everson is currently Assistant Principal Horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He received his musical education at the University of Michigan, eventually returning there as a faculty member. While attending Michigan, David was a member of the Flint, Warren, and Toledo Symphony Orchestras, as well as Principal Horn of the Ann Arbor Chamber Orchestra. David spent the next seventeen years as Principal Horn of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, where he was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Kansas City Brass and taught on the faculties of Washburn University and William Jewell College. Festivals in which he has participated include Des Moines Metro Opera and St. Barth’s. He has appeared as soloist at the Sunflower Music Festival, and with the Detroit and Kansas City Symphony Orchestras. He is busy as a chamber musician, clinician, and soloist nationally, and can be heard on weekly radio transcription concerts of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Dennis J Nulty
Tuba
Dennis Nulty was appointed principal tuba of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2009 by Leonard Slatkin. Prior to his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, he completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, earning a Performers Certificate, one of only a handful of tuba players to do so. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree, he joined the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida where he was a fellow for three years. He has studied with Don Harry of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Mike Roylance of the Boston Symphony, Chester Schmitz formerly of the Boston Symphony, and Harry Shapiro formerly of the Boston Symphony.
An active freelance musician, Dennis has performed extensively with orchestras of Western New York and the Boston area, including the Boston Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, and the Syracuse Symphony. A varied performer, he has had played with many brass quintets, marching bands, jazz ensembles, and period instrument ensembles including the New Sousa Band conducted by Keith Brion with which he toured Florida. Mr. Nulty has been active in the Boston area recording a cd/dvd with Chris Botti and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He has also performed frequently at historic Fenway Park, including opening ceremonies for the first game of the 2007 World Series.
Robert White
Trumpet
Based in Detroit, Michigan, Robert White enjoys an active performing career as an orchestral and recording musician. Recent and upcoming engagements include performances with the Blossom Festival Orchestra in Cleveland, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. From 2004 to 2009, Robert held the position of Second Trumpet with the Charlotte Symphony, having been appointed by then Music Director Christof Perick. Prior to auditioning for the Charlotte Symphony, Robert was on the faculty of Indiana State University and enjoyed an active career in Indianapolis as a studio musician and freelance trumpeter. While in Indianapolis, Robert also performed regularly with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony. Mr. White has been a member of the trumpet faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina since 2006. In 2007-2008, Robert served a one-year faculty appointment at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts. While a student, Robert was selected to participate in the Spoleto USA Festival, the Music Academy of the West, and the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. White has appeared as a trumpet soloist with the Charlotte Symphony, the Indiana State University Wind Ensemble, the Indiana University Chamber Orchestra, and also as a frequent recitalist and chamber musician.
Robert holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Trumpet Performance and Literature from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Robert completed a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Western Michigan University. His primary trumpet teachers are John Rommel, Stephen Burns, and Scott Thornburg.