Biography
Uncommonly for an American wind band conductor, Jack Stamp has also immersed himself in British brass band traditions while maintaining parallel careers as a composer and educator.
Born March 5, 1954, in College Park, Maryland, he completed a bachelor’s degree in music education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He then earned a master’s degree in percussion performance from East Carolina University and pursued doctoral studies in conducting at Michigan State University under Eugene Corporon. Additional composition lessons came from Robert Washburn and Fisher Tull, followed by further work with David Diamond, Joan Tower, and Richard Danielpour.
Between 1979 and 1982 he taught at John T. Hoggard High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. Subsequent positions included leading the Duke University Wind Symphony and the Triangle British Brass Band—the latter providing his initial encounter with the British brass band idiom—alongside serving as chair of the Division of Fine Arts at Campbell University in North Carolina. In the early 1990s he returned to his undergraduate institution as professor of music and conductor of bands at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a post he held until 2015. That same decade he established the Keystone Wind Ensemble, drawing on students, alumni, and faculty at the university; the group has since issued sixteen albums, among them the 1994 release Past the Equinox: Music of Jack Stamp.
Stamp continued composing throughout his career, frequently including his own pieces on programs and recordings while other ensembles, including the North Texas Wind Symphony, also documented his music. By the mid-2020s more than sixty-five of his works, predominantly for band, had appeared on disc. After stepping down from Indiana University of Pennsylvania he taught for several years at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and, in 2018, served as acting director of bands and conducting professor at Luther College in Iowa. The following year England’s Grimethorpe Colliery Band appointed him International Composer in Association. In that capacity he supervised the 2023 Toccata Next album Postcards from Grimethorpe, which presents pieces written for the ensemble by Stamp himself, fellow composer-in-association Liz Lane, and additional contributors. He likewise supplied new music to the Barcelona Clarinet Players for a recording slated for release in 2024.
Born March 5, 1954, in College Park, Maryland, he completed a bachelor’s degree in music education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He then earned a master’s degree in percussion performance from East Carolina University and pursued doctoral studies in conducting at Michigan State University under Eugene Corporon. Additional composition lessons came from Robert Washburn and Fisher Tull, followed by further work with David Diamond, Joan Tower, and Richard Danielpour.
Between 1979 and 1982 he taught at John T. Hoggard High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. Subsequent positions included leading the Duke University Wind Symphony and the Triangle British Brass Band—the latter providing his initial encounter with the British brass band idiom—alongside serving as chair of the Division of Fine Arts at Campbell University in North Carolina. In the early 1990s he returned to his undergraduate institution as professor of music and conductor of bands at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a post he held until 2015. That same decade he established the Keystone Wind Ensemble, drawing on students, alumni, and faculty at the university; the group has since issued sixteen albums, among them the 1994 release Past the Equinox: Music of Jack Stamp.
Stamp continued composing throughout his career, frequently including his own pieces on programs and recordings while other ensembles, including the North Texas Wind Symphony, also documented his music. By the mid-2020s more than sixty-five of his works, predominantly for band, had appeared on disc. After stepping down from Indiana University of Pennsylvania he taught for several years at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and, in 2018, served as acting director of bands and conducting professor at Luther College in Iowa. The following year England’s Grimethorpe Colliery Band appointed him International Composer in Association. In that capacity he supervised the 2023 Toccata Next album Postcards from Grimethorpe, which presents pieces written for the ensemble by Stamp himself, fellow composer-in-association Liz Lane, and additional contributors. He likewise supplied new music to the Barcelona Clarinet Players for a recording slated for release in 2024.
Albums
