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Brass Area

Daniel Mendelow, BMus hons (Oberlin)
Trumpet

T: +61 2 6125 5752

Daniel Mendelow, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's Principal Trumpet has established a reputation as one of Australia's leading brass players and teachers.

Born in New York in 1954, he spent his early years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and began his piano studies at the age of ten. His interest in music and orchestral performance in particular, was sparked quite early when he became the youngest members of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra at age thirteen.

Daniel went on to further his studies at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, with Gene Young and Louis Davidson, graduating with Honours in 1976. That same year, he was awarded a Fellowship to the Berkshire Music Centre at Tanglewood Festival which enabled him to continue his studies with such notables as Gunther Schuller, Armando Ghitalla and Roger Voisin.

Later that year, Daniel was offered the position of Principal Trumpet with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel. After one season with them he was invited by Zubin Mehta to join the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra which toured Australia in 1978. During that tour Daniel was offered the position of Principal Trumpet with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Since joining the Sydney Symphony, Daniel has become a sought-after soloist making guest appearances with ensembles and most orchestras throughout Australia. One of most recent appearances was in the Music for Spring series at St James' Church with fellow SSO members in the concert Music for Brass and Strings which he devised and arranged.

Daniel Mendelow has been Lecturer in Trumpet at the ANU School of Music since 1991, and has seen many of his students attain professional standing here in Australia as well as throughout the world. In fact, the others members of the current SSO trumpet section have all been his former students throughout the years!
He has been a guest Lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Hong Kong, as well as having given successful Master Classes in Germany and the USA.

School of Music faculty member since 1991.