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The story of me and the euphonium is fairly straight-forward, as I began playing the euphonium at age 12. I had already been playing piano since age 6, but wanted to get out of music altogether by age 10. Most of my friends at that time had the rest of their afternoons to play outside, as where I grew up in South Carolina (West Columbia), was still very wooded and full of great bike trails. Nevertheless, the steadfast “give it just one more month” attitude of my mother kept me at the piano practicing, and, at age 10, I took a new look at music altogether.
By the time I reached middle school, the opportunity to play in the school band was just too good an opportunity to pass up. In the 6th grade, when the day finally came to choose our instruments, I had pretty much figured out that the saxophone and the drums were out, as both my older brothers had convinced me that this was not to be my course. Eventually, as we went through the various kinds of instruments that fall of 1990 there at R.H. Fulmer Middle School, I settled on the euphonium. Always one to be a bit different from everyone else, I was the only kid that chose the euphonium.
By the time my days at Airport High School arrived, I had already been in the marching band for a year (as an eighth grade “band aid”...terrible, I know), and was already beginning to take this whole music thing a bit too seriously for a fourteen-year old kid. Nevertheless, I started to compete in the various solo and All-State events South Carolina provided, and found that I liked the success that hard work could bring. By the time graduation rolled around, I had already been studying with Ken Kroesche off and on for a year (at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC), and had made my plans to attend the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. As tough as it was to leave South Carolina (my older two brothers had gone in-state), my faith in God, which had also grown in high school, told me that going to Georgia was indeed the right thing to do.
By my second year in Athens (1998), I was figuring out the value that practice really had, and moreover, that the harder I worked in the practice room, the greater my chances at making a go of this whole euphonium thing. So, competition successes gradually began finding me, and by 2001, I found myself playing well enough to win the Euphonium Solo Artist Competition at the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference, which was held that year in Lahti, Finland. What’s more, just three months prior to this, I had won a job in the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, NY. It was my first and only military band audition to date, and was for a band I didn’t even know existed prior to the audition!
I’m now in my fifth year here at West Point, and have had opportunities that I could have never dreamed of. I’ve visited about 30 colleges or universities in these five years, along with about a dozen festivals throughout the USA and beyond. I’ve given the first euphonium performances in nations like Bulgaria and Macedonia, and performed for a packed-out audiences in Beijing, China. I’ve taken an interest in commissioning great composers to write for the euphonium, and there is a never-ending pile of work to catch up on as more and more of these brilliant minds set about writing for my instrument. All in all, in just five years, a lot has happened.
But, the biggest thing that has happened to me is that I now have a better picture of the why behind these opportunites, and that why is a man named Jesus Christ. As the access key to God the Father, His death on the Cross of Calvary gave me the Holy Spirit. I get these opportunites as a blessing from God, and I can only wonder where the “next great thing” will lead me next. Regardless of where it is, I know that it will be coming from the greatest thing there has ever been – my Lord, my Savior – Jesus Christ. Although He owes me nothing, he has given me a fantastic story in that every day, I get another chance to make music on the greatest instrument on the planet – the euphonium.
*****
Masterclass/Recital Locations since Jan. 1, 2003
The University of South Carolina
The University of North Carolina, Greensboro
The University of Georgia
The University of Wyoming
The University of Northern Colorado
The University of Denver
The University of Kansas
Kansas State University
The University of Missouri at Kansas City
Central Michigan University
Oakland University
Michigan State University
The University of Connecticut
Crane School of Music (SUNY Potsdam)
Montclair State University
Ohio University
The Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Western Kentucky University
Stetson University
The University of South Florida
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
The University of Memphis
University of Southern Mississippi
Louisiana State University
Ithaca College
Millikin University
Illinois State University
University of Louisville
University of Kentucky
Conferences/Festivals since Jan. 1, 2003
Piccolo Spoleto Festival, USA
The Hudson River Regional Festival*
The United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference
The Eastman School of Music 2004 Mid-Winter Tuba-Euphonium Fest
The 2004 International Tuba-Euphonium Conference
The 2004 Montclair State University OcTUBAfest
The Bitola Summer Music Festival* (Bitola, Macedonia)
The Skopje Summer Music Festival 2005* (Skopje, Macedonia)
Soloist with Ensemble, since Jan. 1, 2003
The New York Staff Band
The Imperial Brass Band
The Gramercy Brass Orchestra
The Columbia Community Concert Band*
The North Suburban Concert Band*
The Allentown Band
The United States Military Academy Band
The Military Band of the People's Liberation Army of China*
* Denotes First Euphonium Soloist to ever appear with group or at location
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Copyright
©
Jason
D.
Ham
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