Robert E. Foster

Robert E. Foster has an extensive background as a music educator, conductor, adjudicator, and as a composer and arranger. He has served as a successful band director at the junior high school, high school, and university levels, and he has conducted and/or adjudicated throughout the United States, in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan and Singapore.

He is Professor at the University of Kansas where he was Director of Bands from 1971 – 2002. He was assistant chair of the Department of Music and Dance from 2002 to 2009. He is past president of the American Bandmasters Association, the National Band Association, the Southwest Division of College Band Directors National Association, and of the Big Twelve Conference Band Directors Association. He is the conductor of the award winning Lawrence City Band, and he serves as Educational Consultant to Wingert-Jones Publications. In 2006 he was inducted into the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Conductors.

Foster is Vice-President of the John Philip Sousa Foundation, and has been actively involved in the promotion and performances of the music of John Philip Sousa. He worked with The Instrumentalist magazine as guest editor to produce their Sousa Sesquicentennial issue in November, 2004.

He has written several books, including: Multiple-Option Marching Band Techniques, 1971, published by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.; Practical Hints For Playing the Cornet or Trumpet, published by Belwin Publishing Co.; and My First Arban, book I and book II (a method book for brass instruments), published by Carl Fischer, Inc. He has written numerous articles for The Instrumentalist magazine as well as for other band/music publications, and has several hundred publications of music for bands or for band instruments. They are primarily published by Carl Fischer, Wingert-Jones Publications, CCP/Belwin & Warner Bros. Pub., and by Alfred Publishing Co.

He continues an active schedule as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, and he serves as the director of the Lawrence City Band.