Meet the Musician

Chief Musician Stanley H. Curtis,

Trumpet

Chief Musician Stanley Curtis, originally from Tuscaloosa, Ala., joined the Navy Band in 1998. He earned a Bachelor of Music from the University of Alabama in 1986, a Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1988 and a Doctor of Musical Arts from Indiana University in 2005.  His teachers include Friedemann Immer, Charles Gorham, and Bernard Adelstein.

Curtis has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Evansville Philharmonic, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in La Coruña, Spain.  In 1994, he was a Netherlands Fulbright Scholar and studied baroque music in Amsterdam.  A historic trumpet specialist, he won third prize in the Altenburg International Baroque Trumpet Competition in 1996 and has appeared with baroque music groups Apollo's Fire, the Bach Sinfonia, and the Washington Bach Consort.  A devoted educator, he has taught trumpet at George Mason University and has chaired and organized the historic division of the National Trumpet Competition since 2004.

Curtis is a featured soloist with the Concert Band.  An avid composer and arranger, he has organized and arranged musical pieces for a Navy Band trumpet ensemble for performances at three professional conferences.  He is a member of the Navy Band Brass Quartet, for which he has written many arrangements, and he has composed an original piece that was premiered by the Concert Band in 2003.  In addition to his performance duties, he is an assistant Navy Band archivist, helping with the research and preservation of historical Navy Band information and artifacts.