Dennis Schreffler
Principal Solo Bb Cornet emeritus and co-Founder

Denny Schreffler is not currently playing with BBNW, having moved to the "greater" Tucson area, but as one of the co-founders of the band it's only appropriate to keep him on the list and tell you a little about him.

Denny has blended a music career with other professions for more than thirty years. Having performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Opera, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, the Seahawks Band, and numerous "name" big bands and popular entertainers, Denny was a student of Marie Speziale at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. Other former teachers include Frankie Brown, Charley Butler, Ettore Chiudioni, and Roy Cummings. Denny Schreffler plays a Yamaha cornet prepared by Wayne Tanabe of the Brass Bow in Arlington Hts, IL, and mouthpieces by Mark Curry of Curry Precision Mouthpieces in Reno, NV.

Dr. Ron Cole
Eb Soprano Cornet

A member of the jazz septet Extensions, Seattle area musician Ron Cole is an accomplished trumpeter who also performs on the Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI).

Throughout his musical career, Ron has performed in a variety of contexts in the Pacific Northwest. This includes numerous performances with leading artists and ensembles, ranging from Natalie Cole, Ray Charles, Don Lanphere and Deniece Williams, to the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Cascade Symphony Orchestra, and the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra. His arrangements and compositions have also been featured in the repertoires of saxophonist Don Lanphere, the New Jazz Messengers big band and Extensions.

An alumnus of Western Washington University where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music, Ron earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Trumpet Performance from the University of Washington in 1998. His dissertation was titled The Electronic Valve Instrument: Nyle Steiner's Unique Musical Innovation.

Dr. Ron plays Schilke cornets with customized mouthpieces by Warburton Music Products.

Sorry, no picture available at this time

Laura Tutt
Bb Cornet

No profile available

Gary Roberts
Bb Cornet

No profile available

George Moffat
Bb Cornet

An avid and accomplished cornet player with over 40 years playing experience, George's recent musical credits include playing with the Everett Symphony Orchestra for the past four seasons (including a concert in Carnegie Hall in June, 2006),  Village Theatre, the Northwest Mahler Orchestra, Northwest Savoyards, and as guest principal trumpet with the Cascade Symphony Orchestra for its 45th Anniversary concert in Benaroya Hall. He occasionally studies with David Gordon of the Seattle Symphony.

Since moving to the Seattle area in 1990, he has played with the Boeing Employees' Concert Band, the Midsummer Musical Retreat faculty brass ensemble in performing Rutter's Gloria and has performed with the Seattle Symphony Pacific Northwest Community Orchestra, Northwest Mahler Festival Orchestra, Orchestra Seattle, Thalia Symphony Orchestra, was a guest soloist with the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra, performing Aaron Copland's Quiet City, and was a member of the Green Lake Brass Quintet for five years. He was the principal trumpet in Messiah for the 2001 - 2008 seasons in Lynnwood. He produces the annual Advent Concert Series, featuring his brass quintet along with recent guest ensembles BrassWorks and Mosaic Brass, as a fundraiser in support of Bethany of the Northwest and the Volunteers of America food bank.

Previous experience includes playing with the All South Jersey Symphonic Band, the Cherry Hill Wind Symphony, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Naperville Municipal Band and the DuPage Symphony Orchestra. He was the principal cornettist with the Purdue University All-American Marching and Symphony Bands, and with the Purdue Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony and played the flugelhorn and E-flat soprano cornet with the Bloomington (IN) Brass Band. His teachers have included Thomas Pryzgoda of the Juilliard school, Michael George of the University of Wisconsin, and John Beyrent.

He serves on the boards of directors for the Everett Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Mahler Festival, Washington Music Educators' Association Young Musicians Excelling Fund and the JHS Band and Arts Boosters.

Craig Cutler
Bb Cornet

No profile available

Jack Prindle
Bb Cornet

Jack was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, where he began playing on cornet in 1962 and has been busy tootin' ever since. Since receiving his Bachelor and Master degrees in music from Washington State University, he has taught band and general music in Enumclaw.  Jack is quite active as a performer on trumpet, serving as principal trumpet with the Seattle Philharmonic, and as a "hired gun" with numerous other bands and orchestras in the area.  He teaches private lessons on trumpet (or cornet) and French horn; he's also a conductor, directing the Gateway Concert Band (an adult band) based in Enumclaw.  He and his wife, Janine, have two grown sons (the older of which plays euphonium in our group), two wonderful daughters-in-law, and the world's two most perfect granddaughters.

Theresa Fornalski
Bb Cornet

No profile available

Jon Matson
Bb Cornet

Jon is another of the "taking cornet up again after years of neglect" crowd. After playing cornet from 5th grade through high school in Selah Washington, he set it aside for many years until 1998. The intervening years were spent in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence community, Boston University's MIS degree program and starting a family here in Issaquah. Jon has studied under local celeb Steve Keene and has attended the infamous Midsummer Musical Retreat on the comeback trail that has led him happily to a chair in Brass Band NW. Besides his reawakened love of brass music, Jon is an avid runner who enjoys fly-fishing, hunting, backpacking and competing in biathlons. To finance his many hobbies, feed his daughter Emily and maintain the continued good will of his wife Kathy (can you say, "employee discount") Jon works in the IT department at Nordstrom.

John Craycraft
Bb Cornet

No profile available

Chris Hansen-Murray
Bb Cornet

Chris is another “come-back” trumpet and cornet player. Starting in Gunnison Colorado, Chris played both trumpet and cornet from age 10 through his early college years. Life and career got in the way for most of the next 40 years. Until he could become a brass player again, Chris fulfilled his love of music by singing in a wide variety of vocal ensembles: Croatian Klapa to classical and Baroque to Broadway!

In 2007, after retiring from a career in public land management, he took up the horns again. Key to his return is current trumpet teacher Barb Hudak, with support from long-time friend, former college professor, and still-active British brass-bander John Kincaid. His dancer/wife Jamia has strongly encouraged him in ALL music!  Chris currently plays with Brass Band Northwest and Seattle Symphonic Band at North Seattle Community College.

Rick Hudson
Bb Flugel Horn

Rick started playing the trumpet in the 5th grade and had an early introduction to marching in parades behind horses in Pendleton, Oregon.  Having played through high school he stopped playing while getting his BS in something and MS in Civil Engineering Structures at the University of Washington.    After college, though happily married and working as a consulting structural engineer on buildings,  he noted a deficiency in his musical diet and begin playing  trumpet in the North Seattle Community College Symphonic Band, and then cornet in the Cornucopia Concert Band where he continues playing to this day.  He also leaps at the occasional chance to play brass quintet music and church music with young musicians.  Attending the Midsummer Musical Retreat in summer 2002 he was introduced to and hooked on British Brass Band music, and soon after joined BBNW.

Gary Meier
Eb Alto Horn

Gary is a Puget Sound native, born and raised in Everett, WA. His music career began in elementary school with piano lessons, which unfortunately never took, the flutophone, which is best left forgotten, and with a borrowed trumpet at the age of 10. He played trumpet all through school, studying with various teachers and culminating with a solo performance at high school graduation.

Gary went on to the University of Washington playing with the Wind Sinfonietta and orchestras for a number of musical productions,and after college, with orchestras for the now defunct Sound Expression Theater and the Gilbert & Sullivan society. Since 1987, he has played consistently with the Everett Symphony including time as a founding member of the Everett Symphonic Brass, a brass quintet. Gary has played alto horn with Brass Band Northwest since 2003.

Ealish Matrisian
Eb Alto Horn

No profile available

Andrew Hemmaplardh
Eb Alto Horn

No profile available

Mike Hopkins
Eb Cornet

Mike is a retired appraiser of commercial real estate who lives in Bellevue with his wife Irene, a native of Germany, and their two sons. Although he has always loved music, he lacked formal training. One night back in 1989, while listening to a Wynton Marsalis tape (his first love is jazz), an impulse struck him: "I realized that I could learn to play the trumpet. With desire and effort, all it would take is time." He now admits that it's taken him twice as long to advance half as far as he first expected. "But that's beside the point," he said. "It's a labor of love."

Steve Harmon
Bb Baritone Horn

No profile available

Gordon Mehus
Bb Baritone Horn

No profile available

James Glasgow
Bb Euphonium

James studied privately with his father, Bob Glasgow (student of William Vacchiano, NY Philharmonic), Ray Martyn, Stuart Dempster, Cathy Cole, Dennis Smith, Phil Brink, and Gregory Cox, and received his Bachelor of Music (trombone performance) degree from Western Washington University in 1984. He has taught private lessons and tudored student musicians in both public and private schools. James has played continuously with BBNW since its inaugural season in 2002 and has worked as a freelance trombone and euphonium player for many years in the Puget Sound area, performing as a soloist and with chamber groups, community orchestras and a variety of jazz and concert bands. He has also had the privilege and pleasure of performing with such noted artists as Joe Williams, Carmen McRae, Marnie Nixon and, in 2009, with jazz guitarist/vocalist John Pizzarelli at the Friends of Frank Jazz Festival.

James' picture shows him hauling in a "big catch" (rare species "Euphoniumus Willsonus") while fishing off the coast of Cabo san Lucas Mexico.

Doug Prindle
Bb Euphonium

No profile available

Tom Hampton
Trombone

No profile available

John Bolender
Bb Trombone

John has been playing the trombone off and on since the fourth grade. His involvement in music has led to many special opportunities including marching in the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena with his high school band. He also played in several major jazz festivals with his high school and college bands.

This isn't the first time John has found himself mixed up with a bunch of brass players. He spent three of his junior high and high school years marching and playing in a drum and bugle corps. John observes that while the members of BBNW are older than the kids in drum corps, they still have those same crazy brass player personalities. It's just more intense now.

John has studied trombone with Ray Martyn, Ken Cloud, and Cathy Cole. He's trying hard now to keep up with his kids who are also brass players. Yes, that's one of them in the baritone section.

After a long hiatus from the community band scene (we won't say how long) John's wife convinced him to accompany her to Midsummer Musical Retreat. Since then John has enjoyed performing with his new friends (and some old ones). Besides Brass Band Northwest John has performed with the Shoreline Community Band, sat in with the award-winning Sequoia Junior High jazz band and performs with the Renton City Concert Band.

Jim Timpe
Bb Bass Trombone

Jim wonders: "for formal music education, does two years in Husky Band count?”  Well, maybe, but in Brass Band Northwest we try not to play quite that loud and with better tone. His education includes studies at various and sundry institutions of higher education from Seattle to South Dakota to Japan where he studied liberal arts, psychology, Greek, and lots of other well defined and thought out courses ( no music). After college, Jim spent four years active duty, during the Viet Nam era, in the United States Air Force. Jim and his wife attend Calvary Christian Assembly (www.ccassembly.org) in the Roosevelt district of Seattle, where he occasionally plays tenor trombone, and his wife is the music pastor.

Jim says he descended from trombone to baritone to sousaphone as he progressed through public education, culminating with two years in the sousaphone section in the University of Washington Husky Marching Band under Bill Bissell.  From the basses are aces days, for those of you old enough to remember.His primary hobby is photography and spoiling his granddaughter. Jim is currently employed at Fluke Corporation in Everett as a metrologist in the customer service center.

Heather "Tuba Mama" Oesting
Eb Tuba

An orchestral player who finally saw the light, Heather has forsaken the wire choir and declared her allegiance to the brass band.  Retired from a career as an expert witness, she lives in Issaquah with her husband, daughter, grandchildren, and two corgis.

Heather prepped at the Interlochen Arts Academy, but isn't saying when, and managed to parlay degrees in music, biochemistry, into a MBA in finance.   She plays a really old Besson Sovereign tuba with the biggest mouthpiece she could find.

Jeffrey Taylor
Eb Tuba

Originally from the Chicago area, Jeff grew up studying piano, trumpet, and tuba. After a few terms at the University of Iowa, he left the school-owned instruments and tuba playing behind for a career in engineering, though he remained involved in music plunking around on the piano and as a songwriter and composer. In January, 2001, Jeff finally acquired the first tuba of his own and began some serious brass rehabilitation, including studies with Michael Russell (Seattle Symphony retired), Edgar Phillips (Pac Luth Univ-Bellevue Phil), Michael Grose (U of Ore, Eugene Sym), and Stephen Fissel (bass trombone-Seattle Symphony). A one-time player back in Illinois with the Wheaton Municipal Band and the Bill Russell Orchestra, he currently performs with the Black Diamond Brass, Northwest Symphony, Highline Community Symphonic Band, and the Pontiac Bay Symphony.

Lorraine Thurston
Bb Tuba

No profile available

Kathie Flood
Percussion

Kathie Flood plays percussion with the Washington Wind Symphony, the Northwest Symphony Orchestra, and the Usual Suspects (an oldies rock dance band), as well as with Brass Band Northwest. She grew up in central Iowa, playing in concert bands, jazz bands, marching bands, orchestras, and various small groups at Central College (Pella, IA) and Drake University (Des Moines IA). She has studied with Jack Toker (Seattle), Bob Meunier (Drake), Charlie Evans (Des Moines), Deb Smith (Central), and Leo Dodd (BCC), but her degrees are in Math/Computer Science (BA, Central) and Journalism/Mass Communications (MA, Drake). An avid athlete, she hikes, swims, runs, plays softball, and scuba dives. In her spare time, she is a video game producer at Microsoft.

What we wanted to know was if Joe Willie helped her with any of her marching band routines.

Eric Daane
Percussion

Throughout his musical career, Eric has performed with a variety of groups throughout the pacific northwest, including Tacoma Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Bellevue Philharmonic, Washington Wind Symphony and even the Blue Thunder Drumline of the Seattle Seahawks.

An alumnus of Washington State University, he has taught privately and played freelance. He has been a northwest native all his life and currently resides in Bothell.

The BBNW "Steering Committee" meets at The Pumphouse
every Tuesday after rehearsals.

Of course, what's a few wrong turns here and there amongst friends?