Bill Adam was born on October 21, 1917, in Kansas City, Kansas, to Andrew Walker Adam and Wilda Blose Adam. He grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, graduating from Fort Collins High School at the age of 16. He began taking trumpet lessons at the age of seven from Ben Foltz, third cornetist with the John Philip Sousa Band. He studied with world-renowned teacher Herbert L. Clarke, in addition to Mabel Keith Leach and Hyram Lammes.

When Adam was 11 years old, he hitchhiked from Fort Collins to Denver twice a week to study trumpet with John S. Leick, who was the first trumpet player in the Denver Symphony Orchestra. Adam left home at the age of 16 to play professional trumpet in California in the Hal Kemp orchestra with Skinnay Ennis; he also played for the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, the Los Angeles Civic Orchestra and numerous radio shows.

During the years he was in California, Adam attended Pasadena Jr. College and the University of California in Los Angeles. In the summers, he played at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco with Ennis, and with the Joseph Serpico band at the Yellowstone Grand Canyon Hotel.

He returned to Ft. Collins to join the army at Ft. Logan during World War II. Due to a previous injury he was unable to pass the physical for active duty but worked at the Remington Arms Munitions Factory for six months. Adam then attended both the University of Colorado at Denver and Colorado State College in Ft. Collins, earning his bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance.

His first teaching job was as band director at Rifle High School in Rifle, Colorado in 1940. He was there for one year before taking a job as band director at Englewood High School just outside Denver so he could play professionally. On the weekends, he played at the Brown Palace Hotel. He was first trumpet for the KOA Radio orchestra and played with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. During the summers, he attended Eastman School of music, earning master’s degrees in music theory and composition from 1947 to 1948.

Adam taught at Englewood High School for three years, where he met the love of his life, Dorothy Tiemann. They were married in February 1945. He took a job at the Indiana University School of Music in the fall of 1946, where he taught trumpet for 42 years, retiring in 1988. After his retirement from IU, he continued to teach trumpet privately at his home through October 14, 2013. He died on November 25, 2013 at the Indiana University Health Hospice House in Bloomington, Indiana.

Throughout his career, he earned numerous awards, including the 2002 Robert A. Phillips Service to Music Award, Mentor of Trumpet Players World Wide, the 2004 James B. Calvert Outstanding Music Educator Award from the Indiana Wind Symphony and the 2004 Lifetime Trumpet Teaching Award from the International Trumpet Guild. In 1998 the William Adam Trumpet Scholarship was established at Indiana University.

EDUCATION AND STUDY

• High School - Ft. Collins, Colorado (graduated at age 16)
• Pasadena Jr. College (California)
• University of Southern California (USC)
• Denver University
• University of Colorado, B.M. in Trumpet (1941)
• Eastman School of Music, M.M. in Music Theory (1947-48)
  M.M. in Composition
• (Also: within a few hours of having degrees in Psychology and in English Literature.)

TRUMPET TEACHERS

• Harold Mitchell
• Herbert L. Clarke
• Hyram Lammes
• John Leick
• Louis Maggio
• Mabel Keith Leach
• William Vacciano (studied indirectly)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Public Schools in Rifle, Colorado
• Public Schools in Englewood, Colorado
• San Francisco State College
• Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (starting 1946)
• Retired as Professor of Music from Indiana University in 1988

PERFORMING AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Don Macs Orchestra
• Los Angeles Philharmonic (substitute)
• California Orchestra (substitute)
• Freelance Trumpet in the Los Angeles area (including radio shows, Ice shows, etc.)
• Freelance Trumpet in the Denver, Colorado area K.O.A. Radio Station
• Denver Symphony
• Professional arranger

TRUMPET CLINICS

• U.C.L.A
• University of Illinois
• University of Nevada
• Appalachian State University
• California State University in Chico (1982)
• University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
• University of Alaska
• Performed and lectured at the first (ITG) International Trumpet Guild meeting (1975)

VIDEO TAPED PRESENTATIONS

• University of Alaska (Video tape series to be released soon)
• Taped show for Public/Educational TV, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Video tape series for the California State University in Chico
  (topics included The Acoustics of the Trumpet and Gestalt Psychology)

ARTICLES

• Series of Articles on arranging for the School Musician
• ITG lecture published in Charles Colin's New York Brass Journal (1975)