About
Stemming from a career that has spanned all levels of instrumental and vocal music instruction, kindergarten through graduate school, Bruce Gleason is a professor of music history and music education at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has published over fifty articles in music education and music history and is the founding editor of the on-line research journal, Research and Issues in Music Education.
A former euphonium player with the 298th U.S. Army Band of the Berlin Brigade, Dr. Gleason researches the history of cavalry music throughout the world and lectures in the area of band history. His research in band and music education history has been published in Music Educators Journal, Journal of Band Research, Renaissance, Winds, TUBA Journal, BDGuide, Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, The Irish American Post, MHQ: the Quarterly Journal of Military History, National Guard Magazine, Military Collector and Historian, Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, The Journal of the Military Music Society, and the Galpin Society Journal. His work in pedagogy and comprehensive musicianship has been published in Kjos Band News, The Instrumentalist, School Band and Orchestra, and Contributions to Music Education.
Featured Work
Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drums: Horse-Mounted Bands of the U.S. Army, 1820 -- 1940
Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drums follows American horse-mounted bands from the nation's military infancy through its emergence as a world power during World War II and the corresponding shift from horse-powered to mechanized cavalry. Gleason traces these bands to their origins, including the horn-blowing Celtic and Roman cavalries of antiquity and the mounted Middle Eastern musicians whom European Crusaders encountered in the Holy Land. He describes the performance, musical selections, composition, and duties of American mounted bands that have served regular, militia, volunteer, and National Guard regiments in military and civil parades and concerts, in ceremonies, and on the battlefield. Over time the composition of the bands has changed—beginning with trumpets and drums and expanding to full-fledged concert bands on horseback. Woven throughout the book are often-surprising strands of American military history from the War of 1812 through the Civil War, action on the western frontier, and the two world wars.
