Glen Adsit
Director of Bands
Email: adsit@hartford.edu
Glen Adsit is the Director of Bands and the Associate Director of the Instrumental Studies Division at The Hartt School where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and the Foot in the Door ensemble and guides all aspects of the graduate wind conducting degrees. Professor Adsit was appointed the Director of Bands at The Hartt School in the fall of 2000 following an appointment as the Associate Director of Bands at the University of New Mexico. From 1986 to 1992 he taught at both the junior high and high school levels in the Plymouth-Canton School District in Michigan.
In 2010 the Hartt Wind Ensemble made its Carnegie Hall debut in Stern Auditorium performing the world premiere performance of Dragon Rhyme by Chen Yi. The ensemble also performed at the 2007 College Band Directors National Association Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan and twice at the Eastern Division CBDNA Conferences. Ensembles under his direction have performed at Hill Auditorium (Ann Arbor, Michigan), the Musikverein (Vienna, Austria) and Carnegie Hall's Stern Hall (New York, New York) among others. Adsit's performances have won praise from such notable composers as Joseph Schwanter, Bright Sheng, Susan Botti, Joan Tower, Michael Colgrass and William Bolcom. Gramophone Magazine describes The Hartt Wind Ensemble as "stellar" in its review of their newly released CD on the Naxos label, Passaggi.
An advocate of new music, Adsit is the founder of the National Wind Ensemble Consortium Group, which has a membership of over fifty ensembles and a mission to commission the world's finest composers to write for wind ensemble. The group consists of board members Leonard Slatkin, Phillip Smith, Fran Richards, Joseph Schwantner, H. Robert Reynolds, Jerry Junkin, Mike Haithcock and Eric Rombach-Kendall. Commissions in the first round include works by Chen Yi, Susan Botti and Jennifer Higdon.
His professional conducting includes three productions of the Nutcracker, numerous pops concerts, and many educational concerts with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He conducted a series of educational concerts with both the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in Rochester, New York and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in Albuquerque, NM. In addition to his professional orchestral experience, he also conducted the University of Michigan All-State Intermediate Orchestra for seven years at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.
Professor Adsit holds a bachelor's degree in music education and trombone performance and a master's degree in wind conducting, both from the University of Michigan where he studied with H. Robert Reynolds