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Derek Fenstermacher, 21, is a senior at the University of Alabama, majoring in tuba performance. A native of Huntsville, Alabama, he graduated from Grissom High School there. He began playing tuba at age 13, and at age 18 soloed with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra after winning its concerto competition. He is now principal tubist with the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and is playing this year with the Huntsville and Alabama Symphony Orchestras. He continues his musical studies with euphonium artist and tuba/euphonium professor Demondrae Thurman. Mr. Fenstermacher has also studied with James Michael Dunn, Andrew Miller and Philip Moore II. He has performed with all of the major ensembles at the University of Alabama, including the symphony orchestra, wind ensemble, jazz ensemble, and the Faculty Brass Quintet (of which he is the only undergraduate member). He has twice received the Outstanding Musician award from the National Music Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda, and this year earns the Presser Award, the highest honor an undergraduate can receive, recognizing him as the top senior in his music class. In high school, among other honors, he was one of eight tubists in the United States selected to perform with the Bands of America “Honor Band of America.” He won third place in the Young Artists Tuba division at the 2004 Leonard Falcone International Tuba/Euphonium Competition in Michigan, and was a soloist at the 2007 U.S. Army Band Tuba/Euphonium Conference in Washington, D.C. He attended the 2006 International Tuba/Euphonium Conference in Denver, and performed as principal tubist at the National Orchestral Institute in Maryland in June 2007. James Barnes’s
Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra, Opus 96a, was his selection.
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