Robert Apple

Session: News About the Keyed Trumpet and New Music for the Keyed Trumpet with Friedemann Immer

Robert Apple earned his Bachelor of Music in trumpet performance with a minor in history from the University of Central Florida in 2011, and his Master of Music in trumpet performance from the University of South Florida in 2013. He recently completed a PhD in musicology at the University of Memphis (U of M) Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, where he studied with Doctors Janet Page, Kenneth Kreitner, and David Spencer. His dissertation titled, “The Music Composed for the Keyed Trumpet,” was awarded the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music 2022 Document Award, which is granted to the student from the school of music whose dissertation or thesis is judged the most outstanding for the current academic year. Robert is expected to complete a graduate certificate in early music performance practice during this coming winter semester and is also working to complete a graduate certificate in museum studies, both of which he will be earning through the U of M.

In 2018, Robert became the first student from the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music to be awarded a Fulbright research grant, which allowed him to spend nine months living in Austria studying the surviving music composed for the keyed trumpet. While abroad, Robert was advised by his Fulbright host country affiliate Dr. Klaus Aringer, and guest lectured at the Oberschützen Institute of the Kunstuniversität Graz and Masaryk University in Brno. Robert has presented conference papers based on his dissertation research at the annual meetings of several professional organizations including the American Music Instrument Society, International Trumpet Guild, the Galpin Society, the Historic Brass Society, ANIMUS, and the Internationales Zentrum für Blasmusikforschung. Robert has had the privilege of studying the keyed bugle with Dr. Ralph Dudgeon, and baroque and keyed trumpet with Prof. Friedemann Immer, with whom he has partnered with to produce modern editions of several of the keyed trumpet works that he discusses in his dissertation, a number of which have already been published by Musikverlag Martin Schmid.