New conductor to join School of Music

The IU Jacobs School of Music has announced Jeffrey Gershman will be associate professor of music and associate director of bands/wind conducting beginning in the fall semester.\nGershman will vacate his position as director of instrumental activities at Texas A&M University-Commerce to return to Bloomington, where he was the first IU student ever to receive a Master of Music in Wind Conducting in 1995.\n“Gershman has distinguished himself in every way at this point in his early professional life,” Jacobs School Dean Gwyn Richards said in a press release. “We are fortunate that his talents will now be directed to the students of Indiana and the audiences of Bloomington and beyond.”\nDirector of the Department of Bands Stephen Pratt said he was not surprised Gershman beat out more than 70 applicants for the position. Pratt said he recognized that, even as an undergraduate music education major, Gershman had a unique combination of skills and was “destined to become an excellent teacher and a fine musician.”\nIU has offered Gershman the opportunity to be both, as he will direct and conduct the IU symphonic band as well as teach music courses at various levels. Gershman attributes his success to the education he received at IU and said he is excited by the prospect of sharing it with students.\n“What I learned at IU is the foundation of my teaching style,” Gershman said. “The sound I am looking for with my students is the same sound that Pratt and (Director Emeritus of the Department of Bands) Ray Cramer were trying to create.”\nA native of small-town Delaware, Gershman once dreamed of becoming a world-class tuba player. Coming to Indiana changed all that as he soon realized that he simply “wasn’t good enough” to compete with many of his peers. It was then that he decided to become a conductor and music educator.\nGershman has conducted professionally in Texas and elsewhere. An enthusiastic proponent of contemporary music, his orchestral transcription of Frank Zappa’s “G-Spot Tornado” has been performed twice at conferences for the College Band Directors National Association.\nGershman said his teachers at IU taught him that attitude can be just as important as technique when it comes to music. He anticipates working to improve his students not only as musicians, but as young people.\n“I wish everybody could experience the feeling that they have truly gone full-circle; it is the most satisfying feeling of my career,” he said. “I look forward to giving my students practical and realistic guidance along with the same passion and enthusiasm that my teachers gave to me.”