The 2021 elections process is underway. Below are the candidates for each position along with links to their CVs and a statement from each to introduce themselves and describe what they believe they can bring to the HBS in the position for with they are running. Candidates are displayed in the order in which they applied for the position.
For more details on the responsibilities for each position you may view a summary of all elective positions, major staff positions and committee descriptions here and, for further detail on the structure and procedures of the HBS, you may click here to review the revised By-Laws of the Historic Brass Society.
For qualifications required for members of the Historic Brass Journal Editorial Board, see Editorial Board Membership Criteria.
For more detail on our organizational structure and election procedures see our By-Laws of the Historic Brass Society.
Elections will be held online with an email on November 15th sent to each member who has a paid membership for the 2021 membership year as of the end of November 7, 2021. The email will contain a unique link and code and each member may only vote once. (Institutional subcriptions do not have voting rights.)
Candidate Listing
Latest Revision: 11/14/2021
Click on the name to view the candidate's profile and candidacy statement which are listed lower on this page in the Candidate Profiles section.
All terms begin January 1, 2022.
Vice President
Serves two years and then automatically becomes President for another two years. The Vice President is a member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors.
Elisa Koehler
Board of Directors (1 Position Open)
There are a total of nine members of the Board of Directors including four officers (President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer) and five At Large members. At Large Board members serve terms of three years and may run for reelection for one additional term.
Steven Lundahl (Standing for re-election*)
Arnold Myers (Standing for re-election*)
Member, Editorial Board of the Historic Brass Journal (1 Position Open) **
Arnold Myers
* Note: In 2020, the Membership voted to approve the change in the makeup of the Board of Directors to nine members that includes the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer plus five At-Large members who are elected in three-year cycles. Since the change from appointed members to the current system gave us initially ten members and the desired number was nine, two previously appointed members are currently running for one available seat. (No other candidates applied for this Board position this year.) See the By-Laws (link above) for full details on the makeup of the Board and the election process.
** Note: New this year! Membership in the Historic Brass Journal Editorial Board will now consist of both appointed and elected members. This year, Trevor Herbert was reappointed to the Editorial Board and Arnold Myers, who has been an appointed member of the Editorial Board is now running the position as the elected member of the board.
Candidate Profiles
Vice President
Elisa Koehler
| Title and Institution: | Professor of Music, Department Chair Winthrop University |
| Link to CV: | Click to view CV |
Candidacy Statement
As a member of the Historic Brass Society for nearly twenty years, I am running for the office of Vice President (President-Elect). My vision for the organization is one of education, outreach, and communication. When I was an undergraduate trumpet major at the Peabody Conservatory in the 1980s, prior to the formation of the HBS, information on historic brass instruments was not readily available, but later that all changed. As I wrote in the Acknowledgments of my book, Fanfares and Finesse: A Performer’s Guide to Trumpet History and Literature, "It’s a tiresome cliché to claim that the best learning takes place outside school, but thanks to the Historic Brass Society (HBS), I am only too happy to say so. From the camaraderie of conferences to the abundant scholarship published in the Historic Brass Society Journal and the Bucina book series, the HBS has provided access to information and opportunities that were simply unavailable when I was in school." It would be an honor to serve the organization that has given me so much over the years. With my experience as a trumpeter, conductor, researcher, and academic administrator, I would like to see the HBS expand its excellent publications with more digital resources like the Historic Brass Today newsletter and perhaps introductory videos on historic brass instruments for the general public. More virtual events like last year’s conference would also expand access to those unable to travel and to students who may not have previous experience in the field. My recent experience as a board member and secretary of the International Trumpet Guild (ITG) during the past four years has also provided insights regarding ways an organization like HBS could flourish and grow with expanded technological resources.
Candidates for Director (1 Position Open)
Steven Lundahl
| Title and Institution (if any): | |
| Link to CV: | Click to view CV |
Candidacy Statement
I’ve been a member of the Historic Brass Society since the late 1980’s -- possibly from the beginning. I don’t remember. Through the HBS, I have made many friends and had many good experiences over the decades.
Over the past 22 years, I have become increasingly involved behind the scenes, first taking over the website and what was then the membership list, and taking them through three generations and technologies with more enhancements, with another major upgrade in the planning stages.
In recent years, however, with sagging membership numbers and concerns I heard from some members and former members, I became increasingly concerned that this organization needed to fundamentally change the way it operated in order to improve its ability to serve the Early Brass community and be sustainable over the long term.
I had several conversations with Jeff about the need for elections and other reforms. While very supportive of these proposals, he felt ham-strung by our original by-laws and that required action by the Board. The Board, however, had not been very active for some time. There were no regularly scheduled meetings and things had just glided along for nearly 30 years. I was not a member of the Board, we no longer had annual Membership meetings, so probably like a lot of our members, I didn’t feel I could do much about it as there was no avenue for bringing the change that I felt was needed.
Then, in the Spring of 2019, I got my chance. There were changes in the makeup of the Board and Jeff asked me to be a member and Jeff wanted to step down as President.
Since joining the Board in the Spring of 2019, I have given literally hundreds of hours of my time to drive many of the changes you see in the organization today -- and just as many behind-the-scenes changes that you don’t see that help our organization be able to run in a “Post-Jeff-as-President” HBS world.
These efforts have included:
- Leading the effort to change the by-laws to redefine the structures of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors and other officers and, most importantly, to have regular elections with term limits. While every member on the Board contributed a great deal (we have a terrific Board!) I drove the meeting schedule, scheduled and conducted the meetings, wrote and edited the drafts and communicated with the others.
- I, along with Jeff and Bradley, pushed for changes to the Historic Brass Journal’s Editorial Board structure to allow for more transparency and diversity, and now with huge thanks to Bradley, to add a new member of the Editorial Board that is elected by the Membership. Thanks also go to Arnold who worked with Stew to bring about new procedures and codifying them.
- I organized and hosted our first global online membership meetings in January that I hope will become a new tradition.
- I implemented monthly Executive Committee meetings -- really staff meetings -- so the entire Executive Committee plus other staff can discuss issues, exchange ideas, make plans and keep the ball moving on initiatives. These meetings are usually attended by some members of the Board as well and four times a year they are full Board meetings.
- Pushing for more participation in more areas by members in committees and in volunteer staff positions to help ease the load and, using the “many hands…” principle, distribute the work of making the HBS work among more people.
- In response to the many voices I have heard about wanting more opportunity to write for and be published by the HBS, I proposed a new publication that, thanks to Mike O’Connor, Helen Roberts and an entirely new team of volunteers, that publication, Historic Brass Today, has just premiered last month, October 2021!
- Behind the scenes, I have, for a few years now, been building out a Virtual Office using Google Workspace for the HBS so that we can operate with a globally distributed team of people.
- Planning for the near-term reality of no longer having a physical office in Jeff’s 23rd St. NYC apartment. What will that look like? What will we use for a new address? How will we handle the phone? Where will the mail go and how will it be processed? Where will the existing files and archives go? Who will determine what will need to be scanned into cloud storage for team use? Where will the physical files go and who will manage them and how? What workflows will be required for various activities? These are questions that I have been thinking of and leading efforts to solve.
- Developing and documenting other processes and procedures to help make the organization run smoothly and onboard new people quickly, again in a decentralized, virtual office environment.
- And much more...
While we have made so much progress over the past 18 months, there is still so much left to do. I am working on transitioning out of my role as Technical Director and passing that onto a team of people but would like the opportunity to continue to serve in a leadership role as a member of the Board of Directors for three more years to finish the job of strengthening the processes and building the various teams needed for transitioning the HBS into a healthy growing and sustainable organization. While we have many new and exciting ideas coming from members of the Board, our committees and the membership at large, we need people with project management skills and the ability to implement them to bring us to the next level. I believe I have proven that I am one of those people.
I ask for your vote for membership of the HBS Board of Directors for one final term.
Thank you.
Steven Lundahl
Arnold Myers
| Title and Institution (if any): | |
| Link to CV: | http://www.euchmi.ed.ac.uk/am/pvi.html |
Candidacy Statement
The current move of HBS towards greater transparency and representation is much to be welcomed: it will refresh all our activities. The Society’s main strength is its blend of musical practice and scholarship, which will continue. How we achieve our fusion of historical research with instrumental performance will change, and we should be prepared to seize the opportunities afforded by digital technology. Face-to-face meetings, live concerts and gatherings for festivals and conferences are to be treasured and remain a priority as we plan ahead. We should value the interaction between scholars, instrument makers and performers, which will continue to be fruitful, and lead to ever-higher standards and rewarding musical experiences.
As a member of the Board of Directors I would promote membership of the HBS and participation in meetings, and give practical support to the office-bearers in working with the Society’s committees and outreach activities. I would bring considerable experience as a brass instrumentalist, instrument collector, researcher, teacher, meeting organizer and writer. I have served on the HBS Editorial Board since 1999, and on the Board of Directors since 2019.
A résumé of my brass-related activities and a list of my publications can be viewed at http://www.euchmi.ed.ac.uk/am/pvm.html
Arnold Myers
Candidates for Editorial Board (1 Position Open)
Arnold Myers
Candidacy Statement
Arnold Myers
Statement to Membership for the Position of HBS Journal Editorial Board October 2021
One of the chief assets of the Historic Brass Society is the reputation of the Journal. The high standard of research and writing brings prestige to the Society; it also attracts top-flight scholars to offer further excellent articles, continuing the high standard. As its articles are peer reviewed it also provides a service to those HBS members whose research profile is important for their careers.
As a member of the Editorial Board I would continue to encourage fellow researchers to offer their findings as articles for the Journal, and give practical support to the Executive Editor, undertaking appropriate editorial work when requested. I would bring considerable relevant experience, having written nine articles in peer-reviewed journals as sole author, plus fifteen articles in peer-reviewed journals as joint author, nearly all of those brasswind-related; also numerous other articles in journals and proceedings, and book chapters. I have never had an article offered to a journal rejected. I have refereed articles for various journals, and acted as examiner for several doctoral theses. I have supervised a good number of postgraduate students in their work towards dissertations and theses (all of whom have achieved the degrees they were working towards). I enjoy connections with many brass researchers worldwide: this networking allows me to suggest to fellow-researchers that the best current research could be advantageously published in the HBSJ; it also equips me to identify and enlist referees. My list of publications testifies to considerable editing experience.
A résumé of my brass-related activities and a list of my publications can be viewed at http://www.euchmi.ed.ac.uk/am/pvm.html
Arnold Myers
