Roger Cappallo, trumpets, cornet, flugelhorn

A founding member of the MBQ, Roger began his trumpet studies in 5th grade in 1959, and played intensively over the next 7 years, in orchestras, bands, and a rather successful R&B band called the Castaways (at their peak they performed as the warmup band for a Simon and Garfunkel concert before 2500 people). Upon entering college, he had to make a difficult choice between strong interests in music and math, and perhaps fortuitously for his (well-fed) family, pursued the latter, earning a Ph.D. from MIT, with studies in the burgeoning field of Planetary Science.

His current day job involves doing radio astronomy at the MIT Haystack Observatory.

In recent years, Roger has played with the Planetary Brass Quintet, Chelmsford Community Band, the Concord Band, the Patrick S. Gilmore Society Community Honors Band, the Fitchburg State College Band, as well as the North Shore and Lowell Philharmonic orchestras.

For more about Roger, check out his personal Web page.

Charles Anderson, trumpets, cornet, flugelhorn

Charlie got a grounding in the trumpet during his school days in Pittsford, New York. He studied under August "Tedo" D'Aurizio, participated in the school bands and orchestra, and played with the Genesee Valley Symphony. He regrets it now, but he let other interests lure him away from the trumpet, which sat unused for about 25 years. This time was not completely wasted, as he has a lovely family and has had a long and enjoyable career as a computer programmer for Medical Information Technology (MEDITECH).

In 1992, his church's music director encouraged him to take the trumpet up again, and it has been an important part of his life ever since. He appreciates the patience and kindness of his fellow parishioners, who nursed him through his comeback.

Charlie is a sometime student of Richard Given. He makes an annual pilgrimage to the Chamber Music Center at Wellesley College, where he has received coaching from Ron Anderson, Jon Nelson, and Tom Hoyt.

Charlie plays regularly with the Lincoln-Sudbury Civic Orchestra, the MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orion Big Band, White Collar Crime (a rock 'n' roll band), the Concord Waltz Orchestra, the Stow Festival Orchestra, and the First Parish Chamber Players. He also enjoys participating as a free-lancer in local productions, many of which are performed in the area's churches.

A great lover of classical chamber music (including new music), Charlie is the Artistic Director of the Wayland Little Theatre Concert Series, which presents free, high-quality concerts in his home town of Wayland, Massachusetts. He urges you to check the schedule and come to the concerts!

Alan Ventura, French horn

Like many of his peers, Alan began his musical career after seeing a demonstration of band instruments available to 3rd graders at Kingston (MA) Elementary School. Music had always been a part of the Ventura household thanks to the old Webcor record player — Broadway shows, old 78 r.p.m. symphony recordings, and especially trumpet recordings from Raphael Méndez. So it was no coincindence that Alan initially chose the trumpet. He studied with Donald Leach and played in the elementary school band directed by Ralph Chionard. In the 6th grade, Mr. Chionard recruited Alan to play the horn so he could help fill out the Silver Lake Regional Junior-Senior High band.

Alan took to the horn and enjoyed success, earning first chair positions with Southeastern Massachusetts School Bandmasters Association Festival, South East District and All-State bands and orchestras. He augmented his high school studies by earning first chair in the New England Conservatory Preparatory School orchestra. After graduating from high school, Alan entered the music education program at Lowell State College. He studied horn with Jeanne Paella and eventually earned degrees in Horn Performance and Psychology. Marriage, children and a successful career in magazine publishing followed. This left very little time for horn playing, but Alan did stay involved with music by playing electric bass in a "general business" band. Then in 2001, as a result of an interesting tenure with an Internet start-up company, his schedule allowed him more time to resume playing the horn.

Alan currently teaches horn to private students. He plays regularly with Symphony Pro Musica, Savoyard Light Opera Company, and numerous concert bands, in addition to maintaining an active freelance schedule!

Douglas A. Ruby, Euphonium and Superbone

Doug Ruby has enjoyed a 40+ year career as a professional euphoniumist, performing at least twice a year, sometimes even thrice. Despite parents who were both professional performers and music teachers in his native central California, Doug still made the choice to bring home a euphonium when the band instruments were being passed around at John Muir Elementary School. Since that day in the third grade, the mouthpiece of the euphonium has been his part-time umbilical.

This has led to an illustrious career, beginning with a memorable debut as a featured soloist in Muir's production of The Music Man and a part in the River City Boy's Band. Following an exemplary career playing low B-flat, he graduated to La Loma Junior High School, where he was introduced to the joys of high F. Doug was twice featured soloist with the Thomas Downey High School band, and first chair in the California All-State Honor band, performing under Frederick Fennell. Further, he was drum major and got to go out with cutest French horn player in the band. During his three years at University of California Berkeley (yes, that UC-Berkeley, and yes, then!) he was feted as the best new musician in the Cal Band, was again featured soloist twice in the band's spring production, managed again to be first chair in the 5-state regional Junior College honor band, and overall enjoyed performing and rehearsing over 30 hours a week while infrequently attending classes.

During the rare breaks in his frequent gigging, he supported himself as a technologist in the then-fledgling computer and networking business, scaling the corporate ladder to become Vice-President and CTO of Lucent's Enterprise Internetworking business unit. He also served stints at Prominet Corporation, Whitetree, Inc., Chipcom Corporation, Interlan, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Doug retired from all this after a 27-year career, 17 of those in the local area networking arena, in 2000.

Forsaking the relaxing retirement, which also included frequent stops at the cardiac rehabilitation unit at Beth-Israel Hospital, Doug decided to follow his dream and become a graduate student, majoring in secondary education. After an exciting 2.5 year stint producing voluminous reflections on the state of modern education and the psychology of the adolescent mind, he actually managed to graduate with his M. Ed. from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, as perhaps the oldest student teacher in its recent history. Doug is currently a Math Teacher at Hollis/Brookline High School in Hollis, NH. He looks forward to retiring again sometime, but his euphonium keeps following him around. Perhaps his second retirement will be terminal!

In recent years, Doug has played with the New England Wind Ensemble, the Groton Marching Band and Chowder Society, the Lowell Summer Concert Band, Metropolitan Wind Symphony, John Leite Concert Winds, and the Chelmsford Community Band.

Through it all, Doug has managed to retain his sense of humor and passion for cars, kids, family and his euphonium. As if you needed more, you can visit Doug's Web site at: http://webpages.charter.net/druby

Mark Petersen, tuba

A founding member of the MBQ and our Webmaster, Mark has been playing brass instruments since he was 7 years old. He started with trumpet in elementary school, adding French horn and baritone in junior high school, and tuba in his senior year of high school. By that time, his chops were pretty well munged for any type of audition for the College of Music at the University of Colorado-Boulder, but they needed tubas, so they let him in. He went on to get a degree in Music Education, with tuba his major instrument, graduating in 1975. He actually put his degree to work for several years thereafter as a public school music teacher, teaching bands, choirs, jazz bands, and guitar classes at both junior and senior high school levels. He then spent a year playing tuba and electric bass with The Beegle Boys, a country - folk - blues - delta - bluegrass - bebop band, which once was the opening act for a Tom Waits club gig.

During the '80s, he played in the Boulder Concert Band, and conducted that community organization during one summer season. He was a founding member of the Flagstaff Brass Quintet, one of Colorado's premier brass performing groups, and played with them for 12 years before relocating to Massachusetts. In recent years, Mark has played with the Walden Brass Quintet, the Planetary Brass Quintet, the Bay Colony Brass, the Concord Band, the Concord Waltz Orchestra, the Chelmsford Community Band, the Lowell Summer Concert Band, the Patrick S. Gilmore Society Community Honors Band, and Symphony Pro Musica.

While Mark's tuba exploits are renowned, he is perhaps better known in some circles for his space music. If you've ever been to a planetarium, chances are good you've heard Mark's music. Performing under the nom-de-plume Geodesium, Mark has recorded eight albums of his original synthesizer and electronic keyboard compositions, selling tens of thousands of CDs and cassettes to aficionados around the world, and receiving airplay on the syndicated programs "Music From The Hearts Of Space", "Musical Starstreams", "Echoes" and more. He currently runs a planetarium production company, Loch Ness Productions, which produces planetarium shows, images, music for planetaria and science centers worldwide.