Drew Fennell, Trumpet Teacher:

Drew Fennell, a native of Ford City, PA, graduated from Carnegie Mellon University as a trumpet performance major; and in his twenty-five year professional career, has played in every major professional ensemble in Western Pennsylvania, including the Pittsburgh Opera, the Ballet, and Symphony Orchestra. Since 1998, he has made his performing home with the River City Brass. He served as Assistant Principal Solo Cornet for nine seasons and currently occupies the Solo Flugelhorn chair. He is a frequent soloist—both instrumental and vocal—with the ensemble. Previously, he served as Associate Conductor of the band, and recently stepped down as conductor of the River City Youth Brass Band, after sixteen years as its leader.

He teaches applied trumpet at Grove City College, along with maintaining a healthy private trumpet studio. For fifteen years, he also taught conducting and applied trumpet at the Carnegie Mellon Pre-College program, while serving as conductor of the brass and wind ensembles. Beyond that, he’s conducted several honors band festivals around Western PA, and the Nassau County Band festival in Long Island.

More recently, the focus has shifted to developing a publishing, recording, and music production business, Matonizz-Fennell Productions (matonizz.com), featuring a fast-growing library of music for brass instruments. Throughout his career, he has written hundreds of arrangements and composed over twenty new works for orchestra, wind band, brass band, and chorus. Many of these appear on commercially-released and self-produced recordings. His original music and arrangements, published by BandWorks Publications, Cantatio Publishing, River City Brass Publishing, and others, have been performed to great acclaim all over the world. His eclectic writing career includes the musical “Rivertown Firemen’s Jubilee,” Drew’s first foray into songwriting, and was premiered in the 2013. More recently, he composed “Declaration” for the famous Brighouse and Rastrick Band in the U.K.

Find Drew on social media and listen to his music:
youtube.com/c/themusicofdrewfennell
facebook.com/drewfennellmusic
instagram.com/themusicofdrewfennell/