Joseph Foley
Trumpet
Joseph Damian Foley is a native of Concord, New Hampshire. He attended Boston University as a Trustee Scholar, where he studied trumpet with Roger Voisin, Rolf Smedvig, and Peter Chapman, and composition with Samuel Headrick. He received both his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees
from that institution, and was twice given the award for "Outstanding Brass Player." He also studied
with Arnold Jacobs, Bob McCoy, and Vince Penzerella. A former founding member of the Atlantic Brass Quintet, he has performed in more than a dozen countries on four continents. He has also performed and toured with many prestigious ensembles including the Boston Symphony , the Boston Pops and the New York Philharmonic, as well as the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Boston Lyric Opera, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Musica Viva, the New Hampshire Symphony, Opera Providence, the Springfield Symphony, and the All-American College Orchestra at EPCOT Center. Mr. Foley has been Principal Trumpet of the Rhode Island Philharmonic since 1990. As a soloist he has performed with many ensembles including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra, and the contemporary music ensemble ALEA III.
Mr. Foley is also a gifted arranger, with over fifty brass transcriptions to his credit. Among his highly
praised arrangements for brass are Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Gershwin's "An American in Paris." He has also arranged and composed for such diverse ensembles as full symphony orchestra and jazz ensemble.
As an educator, he has taught at many prestigious institutions, including the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, The Boston Conservatory, Boston College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. He has given clinics and master classes at music schools around the world, and currently serves on the faculties of Rhode Island College, the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, Boston University, and Wellesley College.