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Thomas Fairlie, founding Musical Director and Conductor of the Temple Symphony, begins his eighteenth season on the podium in the 2011-2012 season. Mr. Fairlie is Director of the Division of Fine Arts at Temple College, where he has been a faculty member since 1990. He has also served on the faculty of Odessa College and McMurry University.
Mr. Fairlie began his music instruction with piano lessons at age 8 and trumpet lessons from his father at age 13. He received a BE in music from the University of Toledo, Ohio, studying trumpet and conducting with Bernard Sanchez. He received his MM in Performance from the University of Louisville, studying trumpet with Leon Rapier and conducting with James Livingston.
Mr. Fairlie has a wide range of experience in the conducting and performance of both classical music and jazz. He has led professional orchestras in Texas, Louisiana, and Colorado and has played principal trumpet for Orchestra Symphonica de Guadalajara and the Midland/Odessa Symphony and has performed with various orchestras in the US and Mexico, including the Louisville Orchestra, Toledo Symphony, Veracruz Symphony, Abilene Philharmonic, and Louisville Bach Society and others.
He was a co-founder of the Larimer Youth Festival Orchestra (now called the Rocky Mountain Youth Orchestra) in Fort Collins, Colorado. During the summer of 2011, Mr. Fairlie was again involved in founding a new musical organization, the Fort Collins Music Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is currently serving as artistic director for that organization.
In 1990 he founded the Temple Jazz Orchestra and continues as the director today. In 1991 he founded the Temple Jazz Festival, which has become one of the most successful jazz festivals in Texas. Mr. Fairlie was one of the founding board members of the Central Texas Jazz Society for which he serves as artistic director.
He has been active as a clinician of bands and orchestras in Texas and as faculty in summer music camps in Texas, Colorado, Kentucky, and Ohio since 1976. In 2008 he served as clinician and conductor for the Louisiana All-State Orchestra.
He and his wife, Mary, have lived in Temple, Texas since 1990. Mary is a violinist, a violin teacher, a Temple College faculty member, and the conductor of the Temple College Orchestra. They have been spending summers together in Fort Collins since 1994.