Music Biography

Work Address (CIW): Geophysical Laboratory
5251 Broad Branch Road, NW
Washington, DC 20015-1305
Work Telephone: 202-478-8962
FAX: 202-478-8901
E-mail: rhazen@ciw.edu

Work Address (GMU): George Mason University
Mail Stop 1D6
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
Work Telephone: 703-993-2163
FAX: 703-993-2175

Place of Birth: Rockville Centre, NY
Citizenship: USA
Date of Birth: November 1, 1948

Marital Status: Married 8/9/69 Margaret Hindle
Children: Benjamin Hindle Hazen (b. 1976)
Elizabeth Brooke Hazen (b. 1978)

Education:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 1966-1970 B.S. Earth Science
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 1970-1971 S.M. Earth Science
Harvard University 1971-1975 Ph.D. Mineral. and Crystallogr.

Professional Experience -- Symphonic Trumpeter:
Robert Hazen has played symphonic trumpet professionally since 1966, and he is now a regular member of the National Gallery Orchestra and the National Philharmonic. He studied in Boston with Natalo Paella, Andre Come and Armando Ghitalla, and in Washington with Steven Hendrickson, Adel Sanchez, Emerson Head and Chris Gekker. He has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony Esplanade Orchestra, the Washington Chamber Symphony, the Filene Center Orchestra, the National Gallery Orchestra, the Emmanuel Music Orchestra (Boston) and on BBC-TV in England. Hazen has given many recitals in the United States and Great Britain, including the Busch-Reisinger and Garnder Museums in Boston, the Smithsonian and Corcoran Museums in Washington, and Kings College and St. Johns College in Cambridge, England. In 1998 he appeared as soloist at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Chamber Symphony, for which he played from its founding in 1977 until its demise in 2003.

In 1967 he cofounded the Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble, a brass quintet that thrives to this day. They peformed hundreds of concerts and recitals throughout New England, including the first perfomances of the Christmas Revels at Saunders Theater in Cambridge, the first Ascension Day concerts from the tower of the Busch-Reisinger Museum on the Harvard University campus, and many concerts at the Castle Hill Music Festival.

The Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensmble peforming on Ascension Day, c.1974, from the tower of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The view from the tower. Musicians included Peter Conant, Brian Holmes and John Hildebrand.

He has performed as an extra trumpeter with numerous ensembles in Europe and North America, including the Boston and National Symphonies, Orchestre de Paris, the new York, Boston, Washington national, and Metropolitan Operas, and the American, Jeoffeey, Washington, Baltimore, Kirov and Roayl ballets. His frequent appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra include performances with Mistislav Rostropovich, Erich Leinsdorf, Antal Dorati and Leonard Slatkin. He performed with the NSO on their 2004 national tour, including performances at Carnegie Hall.

"Aida" at Wolf Trap with the Boston Opera, 1980s.

He has performed on historic instruments since the 1970s with many groups, including the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, the Bach Sinfonia, the Handel Society of Baltimore, the Catherdral Choral Societ and the Wolf trap Opera Company. Hazen has recorded on both modern and historic instruments with ensembles on DDG, Pro Arte, New World, Nonesuch, Smithsonian and AMI records.

Hazen has performed and recorded with a number of 19th-century style brass bands, including the Lilybell Saxhorn Brass Band, the Chestnut Brass and Heritage Americana Brass Band. He plays Eb and Bb saxhorn and keyed bugle.

The Lilybell Saxhorn Brass Band, Robert Sheldon Director, performed at the Streitwieser Trumpet Museum, Pottstown, PA, in the 1980s. Musicians include Robert Sheldon, Robert Hazen, Ralph Dudgeon, Larry Ferris, Robert Webb and ??? (back row); Jon Fredrickson, Merle Erler, ???, Franz Streitwieser, Mark Elrod and Robert Pallansch (front row).

Playing keyed bugle with Ralph Dudgeon at the Trumpet Museum.

Robert and Margaret Hazen are authorities on the history of bands in America. They assembled one of the largest collections of brass band ephemera in the world, and wrote The Music Men: An Illustrated History of Brass bands in America (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), which won the 1989 ASCAP Deems taylor Award. They subsequently wrote the script and appeared in a documentary film on the history of bands, produced by SIRS Inc. and shown on PBS TV. The Hazen Collection of Brass band Ephemera is now preserved in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution. For a complete illustrated listing of the collection see:

http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!140294!0

The Hazens were also semi-professional Rennaissance dancers from 1972 to 1984. They performed with the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Court Dancers under Ingrid Brainard and with the Dupont Circle Consortium (Washington, DC) in numerous venues, including the Boston Museum of Fine arts, the Cloisters (NY), Dumbarton Oaks, the Folger Theatre and the Smithsonian Institution.

The Dupont Circle Consortium, c.1982.

Historic Brasswind Collections:

Between 1969 and 1990 Robert and Margaret amassed one of the nation's largest collections of American brass band ephemera, including more than 2,000 band photos, concert programs, music instrument trade catalogs, concert broadsides, band music, bandstand postcards, and other items. Highlights of the collection include a previously unrecorded Mathew Brady photograph of the Rhode Island 2nd Regiment and Band (c.1863), dozens of other Civil War era photos, manuscript band record books from Jillson's Cornet Band (Spring Valley, RI), photos of African American bands, concert posters for Gilmore and Sousa, and hundreds of bandstand photos and postcards. The collection was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution Archives in 1990, and is catalogued as:

Margaret H. Hazen (1990) Register of the Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera ca. 1818-1931. Washington, DC: Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 140 p.

Robert Hazen bought and sold historic brass instruments during the period 1976 to 1988. During that period he sold approximately 2,000 instruments, including more than 100 rare brasswind instruments (at cost) to the Smithsonian Institution collections. He presently maintains a small collection of approximately twenty European and American 19th-century natural, keyed, and valved soprano brass instruments, including important examples of Eb and Bb saxhorns by Civil War era Boston makers, including J. Lathrop Allen, E. G. Wright, and Boston Musical Instrument Manufactory.

Eb Saxhorns by E. G. Wright, Boston, c.1860.

Publications on Music and Music History:

• Hazen, M. H. and R. M. Hazen (1987) The Music Men: An Illustrated History of American Brass Bands, 1880-1920. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, xxiv, 225 p.
• Hazen, R. M. and M. H. Hazen (1987) Brass bands in stereo. Stereo World, May-June, 14-22.
• Hazen, R. M. and M. H. Hazen (1987) Museum collects band ephemera. Paper and Advertising Collector, Issue for August, 1988.
• Hazen, R. M. (1995) Paris cornet solos of the 1840s. International Trumpet Guild Journal May 1995 plus supplement.
• Hazen, R. M. (2002) Curtains for freelancers. The Washington Post Sunday, October 20, p.B8.
• Hazen, R. M. (2006) Foreword. In P. C. Gekker, Fifteen Studies for Piccolo Trumpet. New York: Charles Colin Music, p.2.