Fritz Kaenzig to receive 2019 ITEA Teaching Award

The Board of Directors of the International Tuba Euphonium Association is pleased to announce that Fritz Kaenzig, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Tuba and Euphonium the University of Michigan, is the recipient of the 4th annual ITEA Teaching Award.

Fritz Kaenzig has served as principal tubist of the Florida Symphony Orchestra and as additional or substitute tubist with Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis, under such conductors as Bernstein, Haitink, Leinsdorf, Ozawa, Salonen, and Slatkin. He has recorded and performed as soloist with several of these orchestras, as well as appearing as soloist with the U.S. Air Force and Navy Bands. Since 1984, Mr. Kaenzig has been principal tubist in the Grant Park (Chicago) Orchestra during summers, which has played to capacity audiences since moving to the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in 2005. Kaenzig has performed in ensembles backing up artists as widely varied as Alan Ginsberg, Luciano Pavarotti, and the Moody Blues.

As a guest instructor, recitalist, soloist with ensembles, and adjudicator, Mr. Kaenzig has made appearances at many high schools, colleges, universities, conferences, and music camps throughout the United States, Korea, and Japan.  He received degrees from the Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with extensive studies also with Arnold Jacobs, former tubist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Prior to joining the U-M faculty, he taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Northern Iowa. Mr. Kaenzig is a past president of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association, now known as the International Tuba and Euphonium Association.

The ITEA Teaching Award is presented annually to an ITEA member who has been teaching for at least 10 years.  Letters of nomination are submitted accompanied by letters of support from current and former students and professional colleagues.  Members of the ITEA Board of Directors review the submitted materials and vote to determine the recipient.

Previous recipients of the ITEA Teaching Award are:
2016 - David Zerkel, Professor of Tuba and Euphonium – University of Georgia
2017 - Phil Sinder, Professor of Tuba and Euphonium – Michigan State University
2018 - Don Little, Regents Professor of Tuba – University of North Texas

Sam Pilafian to receive ITEA Lifetime Achievement Award

The Board of Directors of the International Tuba Euphonium Association is pleased to announce that tuba artist Sam Pilaifian will receive the 2019 ITEA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sam Pilafian is perhaps best known as a founding member of the internationally renowned Empire Brass Quintet.  He has also recorded and performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, Pink Floyd, and most recently Boston Brass.  As a solo jazz artist, Sam has recorded fifteen CDs.  He is also a member of the large brass ensemble Summit Brass.  Solo recital and concerto performances during recent seasons have taken him to Canada, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Austria, Germany and England. As an arranger, composer and recording producer, Sam has recently produced and written for Joseph Alessi (New York Philharmonic), the Boston Brass, the Brass Band of Battle Creek, the Academy (of Drum Corp International), and the United States Air Force Band. Sam is the coauthor with Patrick Sheridan of the best-selling pedagogy texts and DVD’s “Breathing Gym” and “Brass Gym”. 



In 1967, Sam won the concerto competition at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, becoming only the second tubist in over fifty years to do so.  He subsequently won fellowships at Dartmouth College and the Tanglewood Music Center.  While at Tanglewood he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to perform on-stage in the world premiere of Bernstein's MASS, which opened the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  He served most recently as Professor of Music at Arizona State University and at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, having previously served for twenty years on the faculties of Boston University and their summer Tanglewood Institute.  Sam has won the Walter Naumberg Chamber Music Award, the Harvard Music Association Prize, the University of Miami's Distinguished Alumni Award, the Brevard Music Center Distinguished Alumni Award, the Robert Trotter Annual Visiting Professorship at the University of Oregon, the annual Outstanding Teacher Award for the College of Fine Arts at Arizona State University, a 2006 Spirit of Disney Award for creativity and design in a Drum Corps International Gold Medal winning performance, and a 2009 Emmy Award for best instructional/educational video from the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences. Sam has previously served as president and chairman of the board of the International Tuba Euphonium Association.

The Lifetime Achievement Awards were established by the Executive Committee of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (now the International Tuba/Euphonium Association) in 1991 as a way to honor those individuals who have made exceptional achievement in and/or service to the euphonium and tuba profession in the areas of performance, pedagogy, scholarship, industry, and composition.