Richard Saucedo - Composer / Conductor
Richard L. Saucedo is currently Director of Bands and Department Chairman at the William H. Duke Center for the Performing Arts at Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana. Under his direction, Carmel bands have received numerous state and national honors in the areas of concert band, jazz band and marching band. The CHS Wind Symphony has performed at the Bands of America National Concert Band Festival three times (1992, 1999, and 2004) and was named the Indiana State Champion Concert Band in 1999. The group also performed at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago during December of 2005. The Carmel Jazz Ensemble has won numerous awards at jazz festivals in Indiana and throughout the Midwest. The Carmel Marching Greyhounds have finished in the top ten at the Bands of America Grand National Championship for the past 12 years and were named National Champions in the fall of 2005. The Marching Band has been an Indiana Class A State Champion three times in recent history. The Indiana Bandmasters Association named Mr. Saucedo Indiana's "Bandmaster of the Year" for 1998-99.
The band program at Carmel currently serves 400 instrumentalists in five concert bands, four jazz ensembles, a 200 member marching band, a 100 member pep band, a competitive winter color guard (2007 WGI Scholastic Open Class National Champions), music theory classes, and a music technology class.
Mr. Saucedo is a freelance arranger and composer, having released numerous marching band arrangements, concert band works and choral compositions. He is currently on the writing staff for the Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. His recent grade 5 composition "Windsprints" was one of the most played new concert band works in 2005 by high school and university bands. Mr. Saucedo also composed a piece for the Mississippi Bandmasters Association honoring the work of all those who helped the state to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The piece was premiered at the All State Band Concert in Jackson, Mississippi during March of 2006. His "Symphony #1 for Wind Orchestra" was premiered at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Convention in December of 2006. Mr. Saucedo has received commissions from all parts of the United States and he will be releasing numerous works for university, high school and middle school bands in the near future. His first DVD on the subject of rehearsing the marching band wind section (Dynamic Music) has just been published by the Hal Leonard Corporation. Mr. Saucedo is also on the staff of the newly formed company, Dynamic Marching.
Mr. Saucedo travels throughout the country as an adjudicator, clinician and guest conductor for concert band, jazz band, marching band, and orchestra. He will be a guest conductor, clinician or commission composer in over 15 different states during 2008-2009. He has been a featured clinician for the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, the Texas Music Educators Association, the Arkansas Bandmasters Association, the Colorado Music Educators Association, the California Music Educators Association and the Indiana Music Educators Association. Mr. Saucedo will be the conductor of the Arizona All-State Band and the Mississippi All-State Band in 2008. He has served as Music Caption Head for the Drum Corps Midwest Judges Guild and as a brass and music judge for Drum Corps International. Mr. Saucedo has also served as the brass composer/arranger and as a music ensemble consultant for the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps in Rosemont, Illinois. The Cavaliers won the DCI World Championship five times between 2000 and 2006 using music by Mr. Saucedo.
Mr. Saucedo did his undergraduate work at Indiana University in Bloomington and finished his master's degree at Butler University in Indianapolis. He is also an aviation enthusiast and a certified private pilot. Mr. Saucedo is married to his wife Sarah and is most proud of his daughter, Carmen, who is in 12th grade and studies voice. The newest member of the Saucedo family is son Ethan David, who was born on December 8, 2006.
Brandon Jones - Euphonium Soloist
Brandon Michael Jones is a Kentucky native and a graduate of Western Kentucky University. In 2001, Brandon was selected by taped audition to travel to Lahti, Finland as a 19-year-old to compete in the 2001 International Tuba and Euphonium Conference (ITEC) Artist Solo Competition. He would be the youngest to ever make the finals and would perform with the Vaasa Symphony Orchestra. The following year, the competition was held at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Brandon would again make the finals, something that had never been accomplished before by someone at his young age. The next year, Brandon was selected to attend the Brass Band of Battle Creek “Avalon” summer brass band camp, and was named principal euphonium after the audition process was complete. He would be featured on the week-ending concert as a soloist, where he performed the “Concerto for Euphonium” by Vladimir Cosma. While at Western Kentucky University, Brandon was the featured soloist with the wind ensemble on the trip to Russia. The trip included several concerts in Moscow as well as in St. Petersburg, including a concert in the Great Tchaikovsky Hall in front of a packed house. Brandon was also featured as a soloist on the WKU Wind Ensemble Tour on two other separate occasions, including performances throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Brandon was also featured as a soloist frequently with the Southern Kentucky Concert Band as well as one of the featured soloists on the annual “PRISM” concert, a long-standing tradition at WKU.
As a clinician and teacher, Brandon is in near constant demand across the USA for brass clinics as well as master classes involving direct work with students. He has taught brass clinics at the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts on numerous occasions as well as the Tennessee Music Educators Association Conference. He maintains a strong studio of high school euphonium and brass players throughout Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, and each year his students are selected among the top of the Kentucky All-State bands, a group where he himself was principal euphonium in his high school days at Muhlenberg North High School. Brandon has had five different students to be selected as principal euphonium in Kentucky in seven years of private teaching. Of the ten euphonium players selected for the Kentucky All-State Symphonic and Concert Bands, Brandon consistently has three or more students to make the group, including having the top two euphonium players in the top ensemble in the state consistently for the past several years. Brandon has also had students make the finals of the ITEC student competition. Brandon’s students also go on to consistently receive distinguished-plus ratings at the solo and ensemble festival, earn principal chair in their respective district bands, principal chair in numerous honor band groups, and have gone on to fill principal chairs in some of the nations finest collegiate wind ensembles.
As a soloist, Brandon is in very high demand. He has been featured as a soloist at the KMEA Conference on numerous occasions, including the world premiere of “Danny Boy” by John Fannin, which was written for him and the Muhlenberg North Middle School Band, and was premiered at the 2005 KMEA Conference. Brandon has performed countless times with some of the best high school, collegiate, and professional ensembles throughout the country, including the world-renowned Brass Band of Battle Creek on a special concert in the Cayman Islands. He has also been featured as a guest performing artist at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference. His performance schedule takes him from coast to coast and beyond.
Brandon’s primary teachers have included Troy Stovall (Director of Bands, Muhlenberg North High School) and Joe Stites (Professor of Tuba and Euphonium, Western Kentucky University). He also credits much of his success to his former retired high school band director, Joe Allen, and his former collegiate director of bands, Dr. John Carmichael.
Brandon is a Buffet Crampon USA Clinician and a Besson Euphonium Performing Artist, and is very proud to be a part of both highly prestigious organizations. He performs exclusively on the Besson Prestige 2052 silver-plated euphonium and Mike Finn mouthpieces.
