Pittsburgh Principal Trumpet to Retire

Earlier today, news broke that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will be holding auditions for Principal Trumpet. This is after the announcement that George Vosburgh, the current Principal Trumpet, will be retiring at the end of this current season.

According to this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Vosburgh along with his wife Joan (the PSO Librarian), were planning to take a sabbatical from March to August of this year. After the long, hard labor negotiations between the musicians and the management, the married couple has decided to retire from their positions. According to the article,

“We were prepared to go one way or another, but I can tell you I never signed up to play in a second-tier orchestra, and that’s essentially what they [the management] did to this orchestra.”

Vosburgh joined Pittsburgh in 1992 after sitting alongside Adolph Herseth and Phil Smith in the Chicago Symphony for a number of years. His wife joined Pittsburgh as librarian in 1984. This now makes Pittsburgh have four high-profile positions to fill in their orchestra including Concertmaster, Principal Second Violin, and Principal Timpani.

For the brass world, this now makes two principal trumpet openings with the recent departure of Chris Martin from Chicago to New York.