About Glen
Glen Adsit served as the Director of Bands at The Hartt School since 2000. In this capacity, he conducted the Wind Ensemble, co-conducted the Foot in the Door Ensemble, and taught graduate conducting. Adsit's commitment to teaching was recognized in 2014 when he received the Larsen Award for outstanding teaching at the University of Hartford. In 2015, he earned recognition as one of the 'Top 40 Educators Making a Difference' by Music For All.
Under his leadership, ensembles at The Hartt School performed at prestigious venues worldwide, including the Musikverein in Vienna, Benaroya Ilsley Hall in Seattle, Carnegie Hall's Stern Hall in New York, the Central Conservatory in Beijing, Harpa in Reykjavík, Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater in Rochester, and Symphony Hall in Boston.
His passion for contemporary music led to the premieres of over sixty works by Hartt instrumental ensembles and the hosting of numerous guest conductors, composers, and performers. The Hartt Wind Ensemble, under his direction, recorded five acclaimed albums for the NAXOS label: Equinox, Passaggi, Dragon Rhyme, Terra Cruda, and Heavy Weather. Reviews have praised the ensemble's excellence, with Gramophone Magazine calling them 'stellar' and Fanfare Magazine noting Glen Adsit as 'one of the finest conductors leading a wind ensemble today.'
An advocate of new music, Adsit was the founder of the National Wind Ensemble Consortium Group (NWECG) and the institute for the Advancement of Secondary and Primary Instrumental Repertoire Excellence (ASPIRE). The mission of these groups is to commission the world’s finest composers to write music for primary, secondary and professional level ensembles.
In addition to his role at The Hartt School, Adsit served as the President of the College Band Directors National Association. Prior to his academic career, he was a public school band director at both the junior and senior high levels in the Plymouth-Canton School District in Plymouth-Canton, Michigan.
“Glen Adsit is a superb builder of ensembles with a nose for outstanding composing talent, and he displays, as well, a remarkable ability to reveal in performance the essence of a new work.”
Ronald Grames, Fanfare Magazine
“The technical ability of young ensembles continue to amaze me, the Hartt School and their conductor, Glen Adsit, in the top league of American student groups, their performances having professionalism written all over them.”
David Denton, Fanfare Magazine
“Without the excellence of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (Glen Adsit conducting) however, the effectiveness of the woodwinds, for example, to create the Wagnerian, Forest Murmurs-like mood at the beginning of Lotta's magic spell and the mystical ambience of the Native American Shaman and Golden Eagle Spirit divertissement (a.k.a. Arabian);or to define characters such as the mice, Mine Rats, Lacewings; or to sound the clarion calls of toy armies; or to sharpen the intensity of the Sugar Pas would have been diminished.”
Ballet-Dance Monthly, January 2004
