and.......day 6

Last night a "new" event for these conferences took place.  An awards banquet.  Ok, I know that sounds thrilling, but it really is a cool thing that we're now doing.  Back in the earlier days of ITEC's banquets happened, but from what I can ascertain they were not much more than everyone eating a meal together.  (and certainly in far fewer numbers than attend the conferences now)

ITEA now gives quite a number of awards on a biennial basis and this banquet was a perfect vehicle for such things.  In addition to formal recognition of those who won the performance competitions that completed on Tuesday, we present three "named" awards and a series of lifetime achievement awards.  The named awards are the Roger Bobo Award for excellence in recording (several categories there) the Harvey Phillips Award for excellence in composition (again, several categories) and a new one this year, the Clifford Bevan Award for excellence in low brass related research.  It is amazing the efforts put forth by the performers, composers and researchers to further our specific art form.  I was fortunate enough to be asked by Oystein Baadsvik to (nominated for best tuba recording) to accept on his behalf, if he were to win, as he had other obligations this week and couldn't be here in person (like, premiering Christian Lindberg's Tuba Concerto, with the composer conducting.....)  He DID win, so that was fun, taking his award hostage(!) 

The Lifetime Achievement Award is our highest honor, and we awarded 4 of those last night.  We awarded Art Lehman (frmr prin. Euphonium , USMC Band) posthumously, but the others are still alive and kicking.  Cliff Bevan couldn't be with us due to a current nerve injury, but the award will be sent to him--he's the writer of the Tuba Family book and really led the way with original research in our arena (hence, the award named after him, too)  Chitate Kagawa from Sapporo, Japan (a teacher and performer who has been very instrumental in shaping literally generations of tuba and euphonium performers in Japan) was on hand to receive his award, as was Ron Bishop (frmr prin. tuba, Cleveland Symphony, and teacher at CIM and Oberlin)   It was a great ceremony of recognition of those at the top of what we do and aspire to be!

My recital is later today, and then I'll be heading home in the early hours of the a.m. with a 5:45 flight.  As a result the recap of today's events may not happen until far later than even this one, but I'll try!

it has been a great week the whole way around.......