Some Interesting Facts About Mr. Stalter...

    Education: Eureka High School, 1984 (Go Hornets!)

                       Bachelor of Music Education (cum laude), Illinois State University, 1988 (Go Redbirds!)

                       Master of Music in Trumpet Performance, Illinois State University, 1990

    Favorite Foods:

                       There isn't much food that I don't like, really...Italian and Chinese food rank right up there, along with a good steak and my wife's home-cooked ribs.  Oh, and Mexican food, too.  Look, just put it on a plate, and I'll eat it.

    Favorite Things To Do:

                        Play my trumpet at church; Golf; PlayStation games, particularly Guitar Hero II (rock on!); Collect recordings of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Listen to recordings of my trumpet hero, Adolph "Bud" Herseth, and my conducting hero, Otto Klemperer; Study downtown Chicago architecture.

    Favorite Music:

                        The Symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler, and Brahms; the piano music of Beethoven, Chopin, and Satie; anything by Giovanni Gabrieli; Copland's Third Symphony; the band music of Vincent Persichetti, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, David Maslanka, and Frank Ticheli; Rush; The Beatles; Miles Davis; and whatever I happen to be conducting at the moment!

    Favorite Movies:

                        Any one of the Star Trek movies, as well as the Star Wars saga, and anything that has a score by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, David Arnold, or James Horner.  Also "Spinal Tap," "A Mighty Wind," and "The Blues Brothers," and two that hold a special place in my heart, "Christmas Vacation" and "Dumb and Dumber."

    Favorite Books:

                        "Song and Wind," by Arnold Jacobs;  "Einstein's Violin," by Joseph Eger; "A Good Walk Spoiled" and "The Majors," by John Feinstein; "Composers on Composing for Band," by Mark Camphouse; "Principles of Orchestration," by N. Rimsky-Korsakov.

    Favorite "other life": Being a Composer

                        I am so fortunate that my band music is published by Alfred Music, Inc., one of the largest print music companies in the world.  My music has been performed in the U.S., Canada, England, Germany, Australia, Greece, Wales, and Japan...totally cool.  Also, I am a member of ASCAP Current news on the composing front includes a new piece called "Ignition" which will be played by the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony in December of 2010, and the inclusion of "Poeme" in the "Teaching Music Through Performance in Band" reference series published by GIA. This past June, the Chicago Symphony Brass Quintet played my arrangement of "Poeme" for brass during their concert tour in Tokyo, Japan.