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Searfoss, David P.

Author, teacher and trumpeter who graduated from Michigan State University College of Music in 1969 and went on to carve out a formidable career as a session musician:  He is reputed to have played on more than seventy film and television soundtracks, including The FugitiveRobin Hood:  Prince of Thieves, and Star Trek:  The Motion Picture.  He also appears on Frank Sinatra’s 1979 boxed set, Trilogy, and Hubert Laws’ 1980 album, Family.

In 1981, he penned an article for the thirty-fifth edition of the Brass Bulletin entitled “The Audition System:  Why American Musicians Emigrate”.  Fortunately for American trumpet fans, he didn’t.  In the mid-‘80s, he joined the Pasadena Symphony, and has since graduated to associate principal trumpet:  He has also occupied the principal trumpet chair for the Santa Clarita Symphony, and performed with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, the L.A. Opera Company, and the L.A. Philharmonic.

He has also been very active in church music.  On 30th October 1994, he was a featured performer at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, California, in a program that included one of Johann Friedrich Fasch’s trumpet concerti.  A couple of years later, he appeared at the International Trumpet Guild Conference at CSU-Long Beach, where he played one sixth of Rob Roy McGregor’s “Essay for Six Trumpets”.

In December of 2002, he returned to FUMC in Santa Monica to perform Halsey Stevens’ Magnificat, a piece he would reprise at the church on 1st June 2008 for the celebration of Stevens’ 100th birthday.  Five days later, he headed down to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Pacific Palisades for a program of George Frideric Handel, Vincent Persichetti, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Another project he worked on was the KCRW radio production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, featuring the voice talents of Orson Bean, Judy Geeson, Elliott Gould, Malcolm McDowell, Rhea Perlman, and Harry Shearer:  A CD is now available.

He has also been an adjunct professor at Santa Monica college and taught trumpet at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, California.

Sources:

  1. http://my.music.msu.edu/search/search.asp?y=24081
  2. http://mediatheque.cite-musique.fr
  3. http://www.pasadenasymphony.org/musicians.htm
  4. http://www.stmatthews.com/musicguild/programs.shtml
  5. http://legacy.kcrw.com/alice/
  6. http://www.scsymphony.com/roster-2.html
  7. http://earlymusicla.passwordprotection.com/emat.htm
  8. http://cauer.com/component/option,com_jcalpro/Itemid,32/extmode,view/extid,488/
  9. http://www.localendar.com
  10. http://www.msmc.la.edu/pages/899.asp
  11. www.trumpetguild.org/9609j/9609Doer.pdf
  12. www.music.msu.edu/events/documents/MusicNotes.pdf
  13. www.trumpetguild.org/pdf/95ReProg.pdf
  14. http://sudo.3.pro.tok2.com/Quest/cards/D/DavidSearfoss/index.html
  15. www.smdp.com/site/archives/120402.pdf