Professor Manning

John Manning, Associate Professor of tuba and euphonium at the University of Iowa, is a founding member of the award-winning Atlantic Brass Quintet. Originally from Raynham, Massachusetts, Mr. Manning received his undergraduate degree from Boston University and his graduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 1986 to 1989, John served as the tuba soloist with the Air Force Band of the Golden West. While stationed in California, former Staff Sergeant Manning was involved in numerous recordings and performed extensively throughout the Western United States.

With the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Mr. Manning has toured across the U.S. and around the world, including Korea, Japan, Costa Rica, France, Kuwait, India, Pakistan, England, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The quintet has won six international chamber music competitions and performed at the White House, Tanglewood, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Savannah Onstage, the Sacramento Festival for New American Music, June in Buffalo, the Bank of Boston Celebrity Series and the International Trumpet Guild Conference. The Atlantic Brass Quintet has conducted master classes at dozens of schools and colleges across the country including Rice University, the San Francisco Conservatory, and the Julliard School.

Mr. Manning has served on the faculty of The Boston Conservatory, Boston University's School for the Arts, and Tanglewood Institute, and the University of Massachusetts. He has also taught at Brandeis University, Mount Holyoke College, and Amherst College and conducted tuba master classes at Louisiana State University, the University at Buffalo, Chautauqua Institution, and New England Conservatory. Outside the United States, John has worked with brass students in Tokyo, Japan; San Jose, Costa Rica; Panama City, Panama; the Cairo Opera House in Egypt; and the Royal Omani National Orchestra School in Muscat, Oman. In 1997, prior to competing in the World Euphonium and Tuba Competition of Guebwiller, France, he appeared as a guest on the NPR radio program "The Connection," hosted by Christopher Lydon. In service to his profession, Manning has hosted two regional tuba euphonium conferences; the Northeastern Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference at University of Massachusetts in 2003, and the Hawkeye Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference at the University of Iowa in 2007, and served as an adjudicator for tuba and euphonium competitions in Canada, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. In 2019, he will host the International Tuba Euphonium Conference at the University of Iowa Voxman School of Music.

As a freelance musician, Mr. Manning has performed with the Boston Symphony, the Empire Brass and the Boston Pops. He has also served as principal tuba with the Vermont Symphony, the Albany (NY) Symphony and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestras. Outside the realm of classical music, Mr. Manning has been involved in a diverse array of eclectic musical interests; ranging from klezmer and world music to rock, and free improvisation. He has performed with the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, Naftule's Dream, Brass Planet, the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra, Arlo Guthrie and John Lithgow.

As a soloist, John has presented recitals across the United States, and at International Tuba Euphonium Conferences in Regina, Greensboro, Denver, Tuscon, and Knoxville. He has recorded two solo CDs on the Summit Records label. His debut solo recording, Four Corners:Tuba Music from around the World, was released in 2009, followed in 2016 by Field Notes: Tuba Music from Iowa.