Bryan Proksch is a professor of music history and 2019 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer at Lamar University. His research centers on American band history, the reception and “revival” of Haydn’s music in the early twentieth century, Viennese Classicism, and the history of the trumpet. He has written four books:

• Bands in American Musical History: Inflection Points and Reappraisals (Rochester, 2024)
• The Golden Age of American Bands: A History in Source Documents (1835–1935) (GIA, 2022)
• A Sousa Reader: Essays, Interviews, and Clippings (GIA, 2017)
• Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century (Rochester, 2015)

Dr. Proksch’s essays have appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society (2011), the Journal of Band Research (2020), the Journal of Musicological Research (2009), the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Center (2012), the Historic Brass Society Journal (2008, 2011, 2014, and 2015), the International Trumpet Guild Journal (2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2020), Texas Music History (2019) and in a variety of books and essay collections. He wrote the entry on Herb Alpert for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

He has spoken at symposia held by the Haydn Festspiele in Eisenstadt, Austria (2011), the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna (2006), and the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Forderung der Blasmusik, Valencia, Spain (2024), as well as the Sixth International Romantic Brass Symposium in Bern, Switzerland (2023), and at the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society (2005, 2008, 2013, and 2020), the Society for American Music (2018) and the Historic Brass Society (2008 and 2010).

He is a National Arts Associate of Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity. In 2007 he received grants from the Avenir Foundation for a month’s residence at the Schönberg Center to study that composer’s aesthetics and analytic techniques.

His service includes working as the president of the Southern Chapter of the American Musicological Society (2016-2018), creator and editor of the International Trumpet Guild Journal’s “Repertoire Corner” column, as the newsletter/website editor for the Historic Brass Society, and as the organist and music director at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He is a Colleague of the American Guild of Organists and holds a Service Playing Certificate from the same organization.

Dr. Proksch hosts a music history show, “Behind the Music,” on 91.3 KVLU Public Radio. The show discusses all sorts of musical styles in an effort to make the history of music fun and accessible to all. It airs Sundays at noon and also streams on KVLU’s website, kvlu.org.