Frank Campos

Professor Emeritus, Music Performance
Specialty: Trumpet

Currently professor of trumpet at Ithaca College’s Whalen Center for Music, Frank Gabriel Campos is an active jazz and classical soloist, clinician and the author of Trumpet Technique (Oxford University Press, 2005). His 'Clinic' column in the International Trumpet Guild Journal has been a pedagogical voice to thousands of trumpeters around the world since 1995. In 2017, he released three CDs, ‘An Unquiet Prayer’, ‘Joyspring’, and 'Kitchen Music', which won two Global Music Awards in the categories of Best Instrumentalist and Best Classical Crossover CD.

Mr Campos earned his bachelor’s degree from California State University Fresno and did graduate work at the University of North Texas, where he won the Outstanding Masters and Outstanding Doctoral Student Awards, as well as the Hexter Prize for Outstanding Graduate. His primary teachers include John James Haynie, Leonard Candelaria, Don Jacoby, James Stamp, W. Ritchie Clendenin, Carole Klein, and his father.

Mr Campos has been principal trumpet of the Binghamton Philharmonic, Tri-Cities Opera, Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Stuckey's Ensemble X, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Texas Baroque Ensemble, Bear Valley Festival Orchestra, and the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra. He has been a member of the Fort Worth Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, Monterey County Symphony, and the Ithaca Brass. He is a former member of the University of North Texas One O’clock Lab Band, the Dallas Cowboys Band, and he has been a featured soloist at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, the Sacramento Jazz Festival, and others. He has performed or toured with such artists as Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, Bob Hope, and Ella Fitzgerald, and has played at Constitution Hall, New York’s Town Hall, and on the stages of the Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center.

Mr. Campos has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, Syracuse Symphony, Skaneateles Summer Music Festival, and the Central New York Jazz Orchestra. He has premiered numerous new works for trumpet, most of them written for him, including solos by Yotam Haber, Sally Lamb, Andrew Waggoner, James Willey, and Dana Wilson. He has performed on period instruments for New York State Baroque and the Sonare Early Music Consort, and he is a founding member of the Dallas Brass. He served on the Board of Directors of the International Trumpet Guild for twelve years. An active soloist and clinician, Campos has been a Yamaha Performing Artist since 1987.

"Whether through his delightful stage presence or his incredible virtuosity, Frank Campos provided an experience that those in attendance will not soon forget." John Cord, International Trumpet Guild Journal

"A terrific trumpeter and one of the great trumpet teachers in the country, Frank Campos essentially sings through his trumpet." Fred Child, host of American Public Media's 'Performance Today'