Date:
1/28/2013
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 575.562.2253
PORTALES—Technical Sergeant Gerald L. Welker will join ENMU music professors Jason Vest, Kayla Paulk and a graduate string quartet from Texas Tech University in a recital of music for horn and piano at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 29, in Buchanan Hall in the Music Building on the Portales campus.
Welker, Principal Hornist of the United State Air Force Academy Band, has a strong musical connection within his family: his father, Dr. Gerald Welker, was the founding conductor of the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble; his mother, Dr. Leslie Welker, teaches middle school band at Hillcrest Middle School, Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and his sister, Adrienne Welker Moore, is a saxophonist with the United States Navy Band, Washington, D.C.
Welker, horn, is a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala. He earned both the Bachelor of Music degree and the Master of Music degree from the University of Alabama, while also serving as the Graduate Teaching Assistant. Sergeant Welker is an active clinician, having given master classes throughout the United States and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. As a performer TSgt Welker was principal horn with the Huntsville Symphony, associate principal/3rd horn with the Macon Symphony, and assistant principal horn with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra.
Welker is an active soloist and chamber musician. Most notably, he won the Second Prize in the professional division of the 2007 International Horn Competition of America, as well as being a featured soloist at the 37th Annual International Horn Society Summer Symposium. He has also been named a Yamaha Young Performing Artist, the National Federation of Music Clubs Brass Soloist of the Year, and has performed as a member of the world-renowned TransAtlantic Horn Quartet. Welker joined the United States Air Force Band of Mid-America in 2006.
He joined the Air Force Academy Band in 2009 and performs with the Marching Band, Concert Band, and Academy Winds.