Your Arkansas IHS Representative: Brent Shires

Brent Shires has served as the International Horn Society Area Rep. for Arkansas since July 2001. Prior to that, he served as the Illinois Rep. from January 1995 through June 1996. Shires is also the Regional Workshop Coordinator for the IHS, providing assistance to horn workshop hosts worldwide. In the spring of 2001, he hosted the Midwest Regional Horn Workshop at the University of Central Arkansas, and in 2004 he inaugurated the Mid-South Horn Workshop with its first annual event. He succeeds Caroline Kinsey and Robin Dauer as Arkansas Reps. Brent has attended a number of international symposiums, supporting the work of the IHS. These include 1988, 1990, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2008.

Shires is Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Central Arkansas, where he teaches horn lessons, high brass methods, and brass pedagogy. He is the Brass Chamber Music Coordinator, and directs the UCA Brass Choir, UCA Horn Ensemble, and student quintets. He currently holds performing positions as Third Horn of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Principal Horn of the Conway Symphony Orchestra, Principal Horn with the Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra, and hornist with Pinnacle Brass (the resident quintet at UCA). He also serves as an endorsing artist for C. G. Conn horns. He teaches during the summer at Dixie Band Camp and at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, located near Muskegon, Michigan. He has also taught on the faculties of Millikin University, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Silver Lake College, and Lakeland College.

Dr. Shires was trained at the State University of New York - Potsdam, and he spent one term at the Birmingham Conservatoire in England. Brent earned his music education degree, Performer's Certificate, and minor in French while at Potsdam. He moved to the Chicago area to study at Northern Illinois University, completing the M.M. in Horn Performance and Pedagogy. Later, he became the only student in twenty years to complete the D.M.A. in Horn at the University of Illinois. He has studied horn with W. Peter Kurau, Roy Schaberg, Norman Schweikert, Paul Navarro, John Fairfield, and Kazimierz Machala.

Shires has performed in 28 states, as well as throughout Europe and China. He has held regular orchestral positions, mostly principal, with the Green Bay Symphony and Manitowoc Symphony in Wisconsin; the Classical Music Festival of Eisenstadt, Austria; the Peoria, Champaign-Urbana, Danville, Millikin-Decatur, and Illinois Valley symphonies; and the Sinfonia da Camera. He has appeared with many other orchestras throughout the Midwest as soloist, extra, or substitute. In addition to winning two university solo competitions, he was a finalist and won a cash prize in the 1997 National Young Artists Competition in Midland, Texas.

You can view information about Dr. Shires at UCA by going to his UCA faculty page.

Brent always welcomes comments, ideas, and submissions of calendar items, articles, and links for both the newsletter and the web site. Visit the Contact page to send him a message.