Trombonist Bob Hamrick and his wife, harpist Anne-Marguerite Michaud, have had outstanding careers in music. They performed for many years with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and are well-known internationally. But educating young musicians has always been equally important to both of them.
Now they are continuing to help educate young musicians — giving back to Hamrick’s alma mater, the West Virginia University School of Music — by establishing the Hamrick-Michaud Excellence in Instrumental Music Scholarship at WVU.
Their $25,000 pledge will provide an annual award to a particularly outstanding music student in the WVU School of Music, who is a performance major.
“The Creative Arts family is so appreciative of Bob and Anne-Marguerite for their support of our students,” said Dean Paul Kreider of the College of Creative Arts. “It is an honor when musicians of such high caliber, who have had amazing careers, remember their roots in this way. We are indeed grateful.”
A native of Clendenin, West Virginia, Bob Hamrick was an honor graduate with a degree in music performance from WVU in 1968 and received his master’s degree in music education in 1970.
“WVU was the best kept secret in the country when I went there,” he said. “The WVU School of Music turned out a lot of excellent graduates who were very successful and dedicated to the profession.
“The school’s standard has always been high and that is one of the reasons we wanted to establish this scholarship. It’s for that special student who is exceptionally talented and displays a strong work ethic.”
When Bob was at WVU, the faculty knew he would go on to be a success.
He was the first trombonist to win WVU’s highly competitive Young Artist Competition and also one of the founders of the WVU Trombone Ensemble. As a student, he was a member of two faculty ensembles—a quintet called The Abbey Brass and the Miltenberger Jazz Trio.
“When I was a freshman, there was no jazz ensemble at WVU,” Hamrick said. “Fellow music student Jay Chattaway (BM ‘68, MM ‘93) and I got together and decided to start a jazz group. The WVU School of Music’s performance emphasis at that time was classical music and did not include other styles of music in the curriculum, but faculty members Bud Udell, Phil Faini and Jim Miltenberger saw the importance of it.”
Trombone faculty members in the School of Music who influenced him included Reginald Fink, David Richey and Dick “Boog” Powell.
Powell encouraged the Trombone Ensemble to play in all different styles, including jazz as well as classical. They traveled around in a beat-up Volkswagen bus, performing at high schools, band festivals and even for the governor of West Virginia on several occasions.
“I also played with various local groups to help cover living and school expenses,” Hamrick said. “These were also valuable learning experiences. My group once opened for Tiny Tim and I remember having to tune his ukulele for him before he went on.”
After receiving his master’s degree, Hamrick taught at Alderson-Broaddus College for six years, where he conducted the Wind Ensemble and founded A-B’s national award-winning jazz ensemble.
Then, in 1976, his life changed dramatically when he won the position of associate principal trombone with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, one of the top orchestras in the world. Later, Orchestra Conductor Andre Previn appointed him to principal trombone.
“Back in those days, to get into a symphony orchestra audition, you had to have had experience in a professional orchestra or know someone who could recommend you,” he said.
“My first audition was for the Cleveland Orchestra. James Benner, a faculty member at WVU at the time, knew the orchestra’s conductor and was kind enough to write to him asking that I be heard. I made it to the final round, but they decided to pick the other finalist because he had several years’ experience in an orchestra.
“That was an eye opener for me. It showed me that I had what it took to get an orchestra position and I used that experience to get into other auditions. But having received excellent training at WVU wasn’t enough. Excellent students needed an outlet to the business.
“So I decided to be proactive and by the time the job at the Pittsburgh Symphony became available I had already taken lessons with the symphony’s principal trombonist. He became familiar with my abilities and my consistency and I’m sure that influenced his decision.
“That is why I later lobbied for a partnership between the WVU School of Music and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra,” he said. “It was a win-win. Students could learn from orchestra members while showing them what they could do. The students would then have an outlet to the business.”
It was Bob Hamrick who was instrumental in setting up the partnership with the orchestra that was announced by the College of Creative Arts in the spring of 2002.
Today, the Canady Symphony Series brings the Pittsburgh Symphony to the WVU Creative Arts Center for concerts three times each year and individual Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra musicians visit each semester to give master classes and present public performances. Students also attend the orchestra’s concerts in Pittsburgh and participate in back stage tours of Heinz Hall.
Hamrick was the first Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra musician to present a master class and a performance at the Creative Arts Center as part of the new partnership.
Teaching at all levels has always been a big part of his life, he says. During his 30-plus years with the Pittsburgh Symphony he has taught at Carlow College, the University of Pittsburgh, as a visiting artist at Penn State University and for more than 20 years as a member of the faculty of Duquesne University School of Music.
He also formed the Gateway Jazz Quintet with some of Pittsburgh’s finest jazz musicians and performed more than 1,300 educational concerts in the public schools of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
Well-known as both a classical and jazz trombonist, he has performed throughout the world on both the trombone and the electric bass with many of the greatest classical, pop and jazz artists, including Doc Severensen, Wayne Andre, Lew Soloff, Randy Brecker, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra Jr., Ray Charles, Mel Torme, Bob Crosby, Tex Benneke and with pop groups including The Fifth Dimension, The Spinners and many more.
In September of 2006, Bob Hamrick retired from the Pittsburgh Symphony and moved with Anne-Marguerite to Virginia, where he continued to perform and conduct.
“Ann-Margeurite and I both started playing early and we still perform,” he said.
Anne-Marguerite Michaud began playing the harp at the age of 7, after her parents had a harpist perform at their wedding and decided that if they had a daughter she would play the harp. By the time she was 10 years old, she was performing professionally, making appearances on TV and radio in the United States, Canada and Europe.
She earned a degree of Bachelor of Music from the Juilliard School in 1974, the same year she was awarded a bronze medal at the International Competition of Musical Performers in Geneva, Switzerland.
She has been a soloist with many American orchestras, was principal harpist with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, second harp with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 21 years and performed as principal harp with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for six years.
Also very involved in teaching, she taught at Brown University, Providence College, Rhode Island College, Grove City College and Carnegie Mellon University, as well as at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Her proudest achievement was the release of her first solo harp CD entitled “A Touch of Elegance” for Summit Records. This recording is a tribute to her teacher, the great Marcel Grandjany, and contains his original compositions and transcriptions for the harp. The CD was hailed by harp scholars as one of the finest harp recordings ever made.
Her second solo CD was entitled “The Children’s Hour, Harpworks for the Imagination” which contained programmatic works. Both CDs were produced for Summit by Bob Hamrick.
“When I spoke at the College of Creative Arts graduation in 2002,” Hamrick recalls, “Then Dean Phil Faini ‘unofficially’ declared Ann-Marguerite an Honorary Mountaineer, which thrilled her. She later performed at the CAC with The Pittsburgh Connection, a trio also made up of Robert Langevin, principal flute of the New York Philharmonic, and Mary Woehr, violist and pianist with the Baltimore Symphony. All had strong ties to Pittsburgh.
“It is an honor for us now to be able to help a talented student attend WVU, and I hope others will be able to join us with music scholarship endowments. WVU alumni are a special group of people that take great pride in their university. I have met people all over the country and the world who love to display the gold and blue and enjoy conversing about their WVU years. They are kind and generous people who keep their ties strong and appreciate their association with the university. I am proud to be in their company.”
The gift creating the Hamrick-Michaud Excellence in Instrumental Music Scholarship at WVU was made in conjunction with A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University. The $1 billion comprehensive campaign being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of the University runs through December 2017.
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CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu
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