BIography: Mike Forbes
An artist of widely diverse musical talents, Mike Forbes (b. 1973) “…is an outstanding tubist with a solid, colorful tone, terrific technical skills, and dramatic flair” (American Record Guide). He can be heard on his 2 solo albums on Summit Records: Forbes Plays Koetsier (Summit Records) where he features all seven works for solo tuba by Dutch composer, Jan Koetsier, and his second album Forbes Plays Forbes featuring his own compositions for tuba, He has been a featured tubist with the Guy's All Star Shoe band on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keiller and also gave the first ever solo tuba recital on Wisconsin Public Radio’s popular broadcast, Live from the Chazen. He has regularly collaborated with European Tuba Phenom, Sérgio Carolino in a duo called the "Trans-Atlantic Tuba Connection" and their 2016 recording "Full Tilt" features many of his works for tuba duo and drums.
Staff Sergeant Forbes began his career as a tubist with the U.S. Army Band, "Pershing’s Own" and then turned to academia where he served on the music faculties at universities along the East Coast and in the Midwest for 20 years. For the past decade, he has been in high demand in Europe as the Guest Tuba Lecturer at the Superior Conservatories in Malaga (Spain), Porto (Portugal), at the international music festivals in Salceda (Spain) and Alcobaça (Portugal). Adding to his Spanish-speaking residencies, he lectured at the "Wind & Song" brass festival at the San Juan Music Conservatory in Puerto Rico and served as a guest artist at the 2018 Texcoco Music Festival near Mexico City. In January, 2019 he found himself soloing with "All About That Bass," an all-female tuba/euphonium quartet in Oslo & Tromsø, Norway and later that month appearing as a guest soloist and chamber coach in Taipei, Taiwan. He has presented clinics, masterclasses, and concerts internationally in Portugal, as well as throughout 100's of high schools and colleges in the United States. In 2020, he served as a guest artist and adjudicator at the Geneva International Tuba Competition in Switzerland where his new "Alpine Concerto"--a work commissioned as the final round work--was premiered.
An extremely prolific chamber musician, Forbes has founded the Isthmus Brass (Wisconsin's leading large brass ensemble also with a Summit Records release: "Isthmus Brass Christmas") and the Isthmus Brass Quintet (a contemporary ensemble of brass quintet & percussion). He has also co-founded the Sotto Voce Quartet , America’s premiere tuba/euphonium quartet. Sotto Voce enjoyed an international touring schedule for many years and has released a number of recordings also on Summit Records. Thanks to a commission from the International Tuba/Euphonium Association (ITEA), Forbes created a his largest work for tuba/euphonium quartet entitled "Concerto for Tuba/Euphonium Quartet" and premiered it at the 2019 ITEC in Iowa. Their latest CD, "Take This Hammer: Works Composed for Sotto Voce" feature two of Forbes's original works for quartet: "Bridge: A Mini-Requiem for Countertenor and Tuba Quartet" and "Four Miniatures," a work Forbes was commissioned to write for the International Tuba/Euphonium Conference Tuba Quartet Competition held in Budapest, Hungary in 2004. The other recordings also feature Forbes’s many compositions and arrangements for the quartet genre, many of which can be found in the Editions BIM catalog. The quartet has performed special concerts at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the Texas Music Educators Convention as well as at the BrassWind Festival in Bergen, Norway.
In addition to the works for Sotto Voce, Forbes is a regularly commissioned composer currently serving as a composer for middle & high school band and orchestra for a number of main-stream publishing companies. in 2015, he was commissioned by WSMA to compose a new work for the High School State Honors Orchestra and the premiere of the work "Rolling Boil" can be seen here on PBS. Other recent commissions include a new trombone solo called "Vestiges" written for Julie Krygsman on commission from Don Winston, a Tuba Trio for Bowling Green State University ("Tripoly"), a 4-tuba quartet for the USC Tuba Studio (Deus Ex Machina), as well as for a host of high school and university wind ensembles including the University of Alabama ("Deja Vu"), UW-Platteville ("Summer Camp"), and UW-La Crosse (WI) ("Ice Flow"). Forbes has repeatedly won the Dallas Wind Symphony Fanfare Composition Competition and his works have received numerous awards and accolades by U.S. Army Band, Humboldt Brass Festival, and the International Tuba-Euphonium Association. His entire catalogue of compositions and arrangements are featured on his publishing website: eBrassMusic.com.
In Wisconsin, Forbes has served as the principal tubist with a number of regional symphony orchestras throughout the state. He has also performed with the Toledo Symphony, Porto Symphony (Portugal), Madison Symphony, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. In his formative years, he performed as principal tuba with the Aspen, Chautauqua, and Hot Springs Music Festival orchestras.
Dr. Forbes studied at the University of Maryland (DMA), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MM), and during his junior year at Penn State (BM) he took an exchange to Manchester, England where he continued his studies the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music. His foremost teachers have included John Stevens, Toby Hanks, Gene Pokorny, Marty Erickson, and Mark Lusk.
Mike Forbes is a Yamaha Performing Artist
Staff Sergeant Forbes began his career as a tubist with the U.S. Army Band, "Pershing’s Own" and then turned to academia where he served on the music faculties at universities along the East Coast and in the Midwest for 20 years. For the past decade, he has been in high demand in Europe as the Guest Tuba Lecturer at the Superior Conservatories in Malaga (Spain), Porto (Portugal), at the international music festivals in Salceda (Spain) and Alcobaça (Portugal). Adding to his Spanish-speaking residencies, he lectured at the "Wind & Song" brass festival at the San Juan Music Conservatory in Puerto Rico and served as a guest artist at the 2018 Texcoco Music Festival near Mexico City. In January, 2019 he found himself soloing with "All About That Bass," an all-female tuba/euphonium quartet in Oslo & Tromsø, Norway and later that month appearing as a guest soloist and chamber coach in Taipei, Taiwan. He has presented clinics, masterclasses, and concerts internationally in Portugal, as well as throughout 100's of high schools and colleges in the United States. In 2020, he served as a guest artist and adjudicator at the Geneva International Tuba Competition in Switzerland where his new "Alpine Concerto"--a work commissioned as the final round work--was premiered.
An extremely prolific chamber musician, Forbes has founded the Isthmus Brass (Wisconsin's leading large brass ensemble also with a Summit Records release: "Isthmus Brass Christmas") and the Isthmus Brass Quintet (a contemporary ensemble of brass quintet & percussion). He has also co-founded the Sotto Voce Quartet , America’s premiere tuba/euphonium quartet. Sotto Voce enjoyed an international touring schedule for many years and has released a number of recordings also on Summit Records. Thanks to a commission from the International Tuba/Euphonium Association (ITEA), Forbes created a his largest work for tuba/euphonium quartet entitled "Concerto for Tuba/Euphonium Quartet" and premiered it at the 2019 ITEC in Iowa. Their latest CD, "Take This Hammer: Works Composed for Sotto Voce" feature two of Forbes's original works for quartet: "Bridge: A Mini-Requiem for Countertenor and Tuba Quartet" and "Four Miniatures," a work Forbes was commissioned to write for the International Tuba/Euphonium Conference Tuba Quartet Competition held in Budapest, Hungary in 2004. The other recordings also feature Forbes’s many compositions and arrangements for the quartet genre, many of which can be found in the Editions BIM catalog. The quartet has performed special concerts at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the Texas Music Educators Convention as well as at the BrassWind Festival in Bergen, Norway.
In addition to the works for Sotto Voce, Forbes is a regularly commissioned composer currently serving as a composer for middle & high school band and orchestra for a number of main-stream publishing companies. in 2015, he was commissioned by WSMA to compose a new work for the High School State Honors Orchestra and the premiere of the work "Rolling Boil" can be seen here on PBS. Other recent commissions include a new trombone solo called "Vestiges" written for Julie Krygsman on commission from Don Winston, a Tuba Trio for Bowling Green State University ("Tripoly"), a 4-tuba quartet for the USC Tuba Studio (Deus Ex Machina), as well as for a host of high school and university wind ensembles including the University of Alabama ("Deja Vu"), UW-Platteville ("Summer Camp"), and UW-La Crosse (WI) ("Ice Flow"). Forbes has repeatedly won the Dallas Wind Symphony Fanfare Composition Competition and his works have received numerous awards and accolades by U.S. Army Band, Humboldt Brass Festival, and the International Tuba-Euphonium Association. His entire catalogue of compositions and arrangements are featured on his publishing website: eBrassMusic.com.
In Wisconsin, Forbes has served as the principal tubist with a number of regional symphony orchestras throughout the state. He has also performed with the Toledo Symphony, Porto Symphony (Portugal), Madison Symphony, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. In his formative years, he performed as principal tuba with the Aspen, Chautauqua, and Hot Springs Music Festival orchestras.
Dr. Forbes studied at the University of Maryland (DMA), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MM), and during his junior year at Penn State (BM) he took an exchange to Manchester, England where he continued his studies the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music. His foremost teachers have included John Stevens, Toby Hanks, Gene Pokorny, Marty Erickson, and Mark Lusk.
Mike Forbes is a Yamaha Performing Artist