A report Tuesday (9/8) on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website states, “Fred Mills, a trumpeter who played for 24 years with the Canadian Brass, has died in an automobile accident. He was 70. Mills, who was teaching at the University of Georgia school of music, died Monday in an accident near Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. He had just returned from a concert date in Europe. … He studied at the Juilliard School in New York and was invited to join the Houston Symphony Orchestra in Texas as principal trumpet. In 1961 conductor Leopold Stokowski formed the American Symphony Orchestra in New York City and Mills moved with him, becoming a founding member of the ASO. … In 1972, he joined the Canadian Brass, a brass quintet spearheaded by Chuck Daellenbach and Gene Watts. An all-brass ensemble was a new concept and the Canadian Brass developed a unique rapport with audiences. … Mills’s facility for arranging music also helped the ensemble move into a sound based on great classical composers from the few pieces developed for brass, Daellenbach said. Among his arrangements for brass that are still heard around the world are a Bach Fugue in B Minor and Vivaldi’s Spring.”
Posted September 10, 2009
