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Nate Petersen
About Me
My Jazz Story
After being offered the opportunity to
double on tenor trombone for middle school
jazz band in 8th grade, my soon-to-be high
school band director, David Martin, offered
to teach me bass trombone in high school.
In addition to playing tuba, I soon picked up
bass trombone and it became my primary
instrument a year later. Martin taught me all
of the fundamentals, including how to play
jazz music. Our top high school jazz band,
University High School (Orange City) JE1,
went to the
Essentially Ellington competition in 2016,
where I got to play on bass trombone. What
an experience! The next year, we performed
at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. I continued
to work on improvisation and transcriptions.
I then began doing FMEA All-State Jazz
band in 2018 and 2019. During my senior
year in
2019, I auditioned for the BOA Jazz Band of
America and NYO-USA/NYO Jazz—winning
all of the above auditions. I am extremely
grateful for these opportunities, as I was
able to meet so many talented musicians
from around the country (I opted to do the
NYO-USA orchestra since I had already
done JBOA, and had to choose between
which group I’d tour with!). For college, I’ve
been studying with Professor Tom Brantley
for my undergrad in trombone performance,
doubling on tenor/bass trombone, classical
and jazz. Although jazz music was not my
first love, it has become one of my favorite
things to play, and I’m thankful I was
exposed to it through my music teachers. I
am now finishing my undergrad at USF,
performing in USF’s Jazz Ensemble 1 and
Prof. Brantley’s jazz trombone “Bone Band”!