Faculty
Leon Slater
Leon Slater is Assistant Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Trumpet at The University of Montana. In addition to teaching trumpet and conducting the Concert Band, he will be supervising student teachers and teaching music education courses. Slater received his Bachelor of Music from Northwestern University in Trumpet Performance, where he was a student of Vincent Cichowicz and Luther Didrickson. He moved to Montana from the Chicago area in 1993 and received his Master of Music and an additional Bachelor of Music Education from The University of Montana where he was a student of Stephen Bolstad.
Mr. Slater comes to UM after 10 years of very successful public school teaching. His high school concert bands have received invitations to music festivals such as the 2005 Aloha Showcase of Music, Honolulu, HI, the 2006 Australian International Music Festival at the Sydney Opera House, and the 2008 New York Wind Band Festival at Carnegie Hall. His high school jazz bands have participated in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Essentially Ellington competition as well as having been selected to perform at the 2007 MENC All-Northwest Convention in Portland, Oregon.
Mr. Slater is a very active trumpet artist performing regularly with groups such as the Big Sky Mudflaps, Salsa Loca, The Ed Norton Big Band, Critical Martini, and Blue Talk & Love with Eden Atwood. He has performed with The Four Tops, The Temptations, Ben E. King as well as jazz luminaries Terry Gibbs, Bobby Shew, Eddie Daniels and Slide Hampton. He has also performed with the Missoula, Bozeman and Billings Symphonies.
Leon resides in Missoula with his wife Liz and their two beautiful children Ethan (age 6) and Emi (age 4).
Mr. Slater performs on Edwards Trumpets (http://www.edwards-instruments.com/trumpet/ ) and Warburton Mouthpieces (http://www.warburton-usa.com/) exclusively.
Contact Professor Slater: leon.slater@mso.umt.edu