Trombone Comic-Con

Each year, there are two main events for the trombone world that bring world-class artists together for a weekend event. The first one is the International Trombone Festival. ITF has been around for over 40 years and is held in various locations each year – usually every other year it is held in the United States. The dates this year are July 8-11 in Valencia, Spain.

The real reason for writing this post is to highlight the other event – The American Trombone Workshop. For 40 years, this event was called the Eastern Trombone Workshop. It has been sponsored by different organizations as well as held in different venues throughout the Eastern coastline. Since 1993, the United States Army Band has been hosting the event at Brucker Hall, Fort Myer, Virginia. Having been able to attend numerous times, it has always been super well organized and very inspirational. Each year, I make great new friends and acquaintances, spend way too much on sheet music, and drool over many nice trombones (see where the comic-con part comes into play).

There are two BIG reasons why I am a fan of this weekend event.

Number One……IT’S FREE!! Thanks to our American tax dollars, this weekend event is literally free to the public. I dare you to find another event of this caliber (no pun intended) that features the top trombonists in our business and does not cost you a dime (other than food and travel….and your taxes).

Number Two……Technology. Again, thanks to our tax dollars, the military is able to utilize technology to the highest degree. For the past few years, the Workshop has been able to provide a livestream of the entire weekend. For those of you who cannot make the trek to D.C., you can stream the event while you are at home, school, or even in your cubicle at work. You can even be like me, and stream it through Apple TV to watch it on the big screen, and still watch March Madness on the iPad this weekend (you see what are my priorities).

One other perk to having it streamed through Youtube is all of the events are archived. So if you missed last year’s Sectional Masterclass or Jiggs Whigham’s Recital, you can still watch them and many more! On top of that, you can watch many other performances given by “Pershing’s Own.” Just subscribe to their YouTube page.

Here is a link to their livestream that will start at 12 pm Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Go ahead. Click on the link. It’s counting down the event for you!

Enjoy!