Kyle Prescott is the Director of Bands and Professor of Music at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where he conducts the University Wind Ensemble, teaches graduate conducting, and coordinates all aspects of the University Bands program. He has been presented the Talon Faculty Leadership Award for FAU, named a ‘Master Teacher’ in the College of Arts and Letters, and received the College’s award for ‘Innovation and Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching’. He holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Idaho’s Lionel Hampton School of Music, and a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Wind Conducting from The University of Texas at Austin, where his principal conducting teacher was Jerry F. Junkin. Prior to his work in Texas, Dr. Prescott taught high school bands in Idaho and Montana for eight years.
As a trumpet player, he has performed on stage backing jazz greats including Bobby Shew, Chuck Findley, Rob McConnell, Claudio Roditi, and Paquito D’Rivera, country music star Trisha Yearwood, and in festival orchestras alongside members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic.
Ensembles conducted by Dr. Prescott have been invited to perform at division conferences of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) twice, for the Florida Music Education Association conference, and three times at the Southern Division Conference of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA).
A strong advocate for new music, Dr. Prescott has commissioned and conducted the world premieres of dozens of innovative works for wind band and is published in five volumes of the Teaching Music Through Performance series. He has presented across the country on a variety of topics, including once for the National Security Agency (NSA) Center for Cryptologic History, and has been appointed to conduct both all-state bands and all-state orchestras. He is in high demand as a conducting pedagogue, having assisted over four-hundred professional conductors across the country through sessions and classes. His graduate conducting students from FAU have attained positions at universities including the University of Southern California, Louisiana State University, Marshall University and Stephen F. Austin University. Dr. Prescott’s approach to the conductor’s podium and leadership is expressed in his TEDx Talk, “Plays Well with Others: Why Musicians Understand Leadership.”
Dr. Prescott has held significant positions of leadership in the professional music community, serving as Florida Chair of the College Band Directors National Association, Board President of The Symphonia chamber orchestra, on the board of the Florida Bandmasters Association, and he is currently President-Elect of the Florida Collegiate Music Education Association. Dr. Prescott is conductor of the Philharmonic of the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County, and Conductor and Music Director of the professional Florida Wind Symphony and FWS Jazz Orchestra.
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