Dr. Kyle Prescott
Dr. Kyle Prescott
DMA The University of Texas
Professor of Music
Director of Bands
Areas of Expertise:
Conducting
Music Education
Email:
kpresco2@fau.edu
Office Phone: 561.297.3826
Office: AH 115B
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 university’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 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 twice, and three times at the Southern Division Conference of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA).
A fervent 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 his research on musicians and cryptology for the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Center for Cryptologic History, the International Cryptologic Symposium at Oxford University, and the McMullen Naval History Symposium at Annapolis, MD.
He is notably the only conductor invited to direct both the All-State Band and All-State Orchestra in the State of Florida. In demand as a conducting pedagogue, Dr. Prescott has assisted over four hundred professional conductors through sessions and classes. His graduate conducting students from Florida Atlantic have attained positions at universities across the country. 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 for eleven years, Board President of The Symphonia chamber orchestra, on the clinics committee of the Florida Bandmasters Association, and he is currently President-Elect of the Florida Collegiate Music Education Association. Dr. Prescott conducts the Philharmonic of the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County and is Conductor and Music Director of the professional Florida Wind Symphony and FWS Jazz Orchestra.