Professor I.M. Gestopftmitscheist

 

Prof. I.M. Gestopfmitscheist was born and reared in Schplittenotendorf am Öede, the neighboring village to the city of Badd Lippstadt, Germany. He attended high school at the Gymnasium ad Nauseum von Schplittenotendorf and then graduated Magna Cum Disgracium from the Hochschule für Musik und Bierbrauen von Badd Lippstadt where he studied with the great Professor Otto Fisch.  He also knew Oscar Franz, Franz Strauss and Georg Kopprasch as they always stayed at his house when touring as the Professor’s mother, Helga Swartzherzschlutt Gestopftmitscheist was “very friendly” to them and many other famous horn players.  Soon after graduation, he was appointed to the position of assistant 4th/principal 8th horn/principal 4th Wagner Tuba at the Stadtsoper und Philharmoniker und Kammerorchester von Badd Lippstadt when a careless Personalleiter Sekretärin mistakenly sent the acceptance letter to him and not to the audition winner.  The Professor then served there for 24 years until he was immediately fired after the first rehearsal in which he had to play since budget cuts at the outset of his tenure forced the programming to never have more than 7 horns until then.  In the aftermath of WWII, he was arrested by the occupying American forces and charged with “musical pornography” when General George Patton heard him playing his right-handed-E-flat-Wagner-Tuba on the streets for change.  Luckily, the same young American officer, who had been a mellophonist in high school, who snuck the cyanide to Hermann Goering in prison, befriended the Professor and sprung him.  He then made his way to NY City where he lived underground and is credited in some circles to having founded the Beatnik Movement of the late 40’s and early 50’s due to his love of abstract poetry and bongo drumming.  When the statute of limitations on his charges ran out, he then came out of hiding and settled in in Exit 2, New Jersey, where he operated a teaching studio and micro-brewery at Margie’s Truck Stop, Motel and Showers.  He was a well-known freelance so-called Artist performing as Solo Horn of the Exit 2 Brass Quintet, The Broken Winds WW Quintet, and as Assistant Associate Principal Mellophone, NJ Turnpike Authority Drum and Bugle Corps, "The Phantom Lane Changers” until his retirement due to bad knees.  He now lives in Bad Corner, New Hampshire where he continues to play with the Bad Corner brASS Quintet, is Solo 4th Horn (Leader, call him for bookings) of the Smirnoff Horn Quartet, is Hornist as Needed with L'Ensemble du Chambre des Palourdes, is Principal Natural Horn of I Soloisti di Feces and is Principal Baroque and Hunting Horn with the Camarata Vongoleforte.

The Professor is famous for his unique contributions to KBHC and the horn world in general. One of his greatest achievements was the development of the double belled horn, which he designed to fix what he calls "The Mellophone Problem." By adding a valve connected to a bell facing forward, the performer can play the same instrument year round (and also threaten to death any conductor one might encounter in a concert band or symphony orchestra who says the horns are too loud). The Professor is also known for having brought the natural horn into the 20th and now, 21st centuries with his performances of the works of Gliere, Hindemith and Gordon Jacob at KBHC.  He is THE world’s only recognized authority in the science of Clamology, which he discovered by accident during his first horn lesson at age 2, and he lectured/demonstrated this brilliantly at IHS 40 in Denver in 2009.  He also founded the universal, intergalactic, unrelenting, daily HOLIDAY for all horn players: CLAMSAA. 

The Professor is an expert in what he calls “Home Petroleum Studies” and now owns and operates the “World’s Largest Valve Oil Factory” in Bad Corner.  His products are for sale at KBHC and through Lawson Horns and all proceeds go the KBHC Scholarship Fund.

A lifelong educator, the Professor was Adjunct, Part-time, Arms-length Professor of Horn and Pest Control at Exit 2 Community College.  He is now Adjunct, Part-time, Arms-length Professor of Horn, Pest Control and Home Petroleum Studies at Northern New Hampshire Para-technical Institute in Bad Corner.  Many of his students went on to distinguished careers in respectable professions but one did not: Kendall Betts.  Even though Kendall always avoids The Professor at KBHC (you will never see the two of them together at the same time), if you ask him about this, Kendall will just tell you that “He’s always around, no matter what I do!”