Jeffrey Meyer

As a conductor and private teacher, I have taught students ages 8-80, from beginners to pre-professional. In addition, I teach courses in Music Education, Composition, Music Theory, Sight Singing and Ear Training, Orchestration, Conducting, Music Appreciation, and Music Technology. I am currently the Director of Bands and Brass Studies at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, and I have served on the faculties of El Paso Community College, The University of Guam, Highland (Kansas) Community College, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Additionally, I have provided master classes at Wayland Baptist University, Angelo State University, West Texas A&M University, and I served on the faculty of the First Statewide Band Festival at the Cultural Institute in Tlaxcala City, Mexico. At Sul Ross, I conduct the concert and athletic bands, and I teach all brass instruments. In these courses, we study diverse literature from composers such as David Amram, Kent Kennan, Barbara York, Francis Poulenc, and Fisher Tull, to name a few.

I emphasize strategies for achieving successful performances that communicate and connect with audiences. Chamber music and collaboration is central to my work, and I strive to program literature that spans all the style periods, as well as the music of different ethnologies and national styles, including female and composers of color. We often discuss phrasing regarding formulating a breathing plan, and as such we inevitably study score reading and analysis. My students have gone on to become successful educators and performers, and enter robust graduate programs for Music.

What I love most about teaching is how I can continue to grow as a musician and artist, discovering more about how music works through continuous study. I do not take a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, and I am always eager to try out new methodologies in classes and lessons, distilling them into my own practice. My aim as a teacher is to empower my students to make their own informed decisions about how to interpret and explicate music that is artful and entertaining, and to always feel that they can rise to meet any performing challenge.

Recently, I served as the conductor/clinician for the 2020 TMEA All-Region 6 Freshman Band in Midland, TX, and the 2019 ATSSB All-Region 22 High School Band in El Paso, TX. I was the tenured principal tubist of the Springfield (Missouri) Symphony Orchestra, and I have performed as a substitute tubist with the Mexico City Philharmonic, Xalapa Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Chihuahua Philharmonic (Mexico), Juarez Symphony (Mexico), Roswell Symphony (New Mexico), Mansfield Symphony (Ohio), and the Fountain City Brass Band (Kansas), to name a few. I hold the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Master of Music from Kent State University, and Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music. I am also a composer and have had original works performed at the Abrons Arts Center in New York City, Casa Loma, in Toronto, Ontario, and the Atkinson Recital Hall in Las Cruces, New Mexico.