Barbara Hull is Associate Professor in Residence of trumpet at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she has taught since 2015. She is a Yamaha Performing Artist and regularly serves as an adjudicator for the National Trumpet Competition, the International Trumpet Guild and the International Women's Brass Conference. Recent solo appearances include the International Women's Brass Conference (2025 featured guest artist), the Houghton University Artist Series and the Las Vegas Sinfonietta. 

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Barbara holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Trumpet Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with James Thompson. She earned her Masters Degree at Eastman in the studio of Charles Geyer. She is a recipient of the Eastman School of Music Performer's Certificate, and, as winner of Eastman's Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Concerto Competition, performed as soloist with the Eastman Wind Ensemble under Donald Hunsberger. Barbara also served as principal trumpet of the Eastman Wind Ensemble during a collaboration between the EWE and the Canadian Brass. The CD for that project, Manhattan Music, was released in 2008.

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Dr. Hull has performed as principal trumpet with Ensemble Monterey in Monterey, California as well as the Sacramento Philharmonic, Modesto, and Fremont Symphonies, Grass Valley Music Festival, the San Francisco Lyric Opera, San Francisco Masterworks Chorale and the San Francisco Chorale Society. 

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Barbara has also performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Las Vegas Sinfonietta, Nevada Ballet Theater and soloed on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2 with the Las Vegas Baroque Festival. 

 

Before joining the faculty at UNLV she lived in Rochester, NY where she taught applied trumpet and brass at Nazareth College and was a member of Symphoria (formerly the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra). She also played regularly with the Skaneateles Summer Music Festival, Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Oratorio Society and the Kunde Chorale.

 

Barbara was Principal Trumpet with the Albany Symphony Orchestra from 1995-1998, recording with the orchestra under the Decca and Albany Records labels. She played with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra from 2000-2003. While living in Albuquerque, she also performed regularly with the New Mexico Brass Quintet, the New Mexico Symphony Brass Quintet, the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, and Opera Southwest. She has also performed with the Rochester Philharmonic and Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra.

 

One of Barbara's earliest and most influential teachers was the late James Burke, who served for 28 years as cornet soloist with the Edwin Franko Goldman Band. Jimmy was one of the last virtuoso cornetists of the twentieth century. During her studies with him, Barbara concentrated on the cornet style of playing embodied in Arban’s Complete Conservatory Method. Dr. Hull was one of the last students to study with Burke before his death and counts it a rare privilege to have studied with such a master.

 

Barbara completed her undergraduate work at Houghton College, where she earned the B.Mus. degree and studied with Dr. Harold McNiel. Other instructors include Mark Gould, Robert Earley, Niklas Eklund, and David Kuehn. 

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"Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.  ...

O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest,
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain--thou movest, drawest, changest them at will."

          —From Walt Whitman’s The Mystic Trumpeter