Originally published March 12, 2015
University of Texas at El Paso Assistant Marching Band Director and Horn Professor Richard Lambrecht has been named Texas Bandmaster of the Year.
Lambrecht has had a long and successful career as a Texas bandmaster, beginning at Coronado High School, where he served as band director for 30 years. During his tenure, the Coronado Band garnered awards including the Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Flag Of Honor for concert band and the Sudler Shield of Excellence for high school marching band. Coronado’s band won numerous competitions, performed on national television, and toured Mexico and Europe. The Russian Ministry of Culture invited the band to perform as the only North American unit in the 1996 May Day celebrations in Moscow.
The Texas Bandmasters Association is proud to present the Bandmaster of the Year award each year to a Texas band director who has shown excellence in musicianship, leadership and responsibility. The TBA Bandmasters of the Year is announced at the Phi Beta Mu meeting each February.
Lambrecht joined the UTEP music faculty in 1996. He has been playing principal horn in the El Paso Symphony Orchestra for more than 40 years since his student days at UTEP. During his tenure with the orchestra he has also toured Germany and Turkey, as well as performing in the neighboring country of Mexico. He is a founding member of El Paso Brass, a quintet that has been performing together since 1972.
In Brass in Class weekly performances for elementary and middle schools in the metropolitan El Paso area, Lambrecht has performed for more than half a million students. El Paso Brass has also been a featured performer with many symphony orchestras, and has played in New York City and at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.