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About Our Music Director and Conductor

Dr. Trent Hollinger



Dr. HollingerThe Quincy Concert Band's Music Director, Dr. Trent A. Hollinger, has been acclaimed as a conductor with a "driving passion to make music at its highest possible levels of accomplishment."

Currently, Dr. Hollinger serves as Director of Bands and Associates Professor of Music at Culver-Stockton College, and has been the Music Director of the Quincy Concert Band since 2008.  He previously served as conductor and musical director of the Quincy Area Youth Orchestra from 2010 to 2015.  He has been nationally recognized for his conducting as a finalist for the American Prize in Conducting in 2012 and 2016, and for his directing as a 2015 second place winner for the American Prize in Community Band Performance with the Quincy Concert Band.

As a composer and arranger, recent commissions and transcriptions have included a trumpet concerto for trumpet virtuoso Joe Burgstaller, and a voice and wind band transcription for the University of Northern Iowa Wind Ensemble.  Hollinger regularly features new compositions at Culver, and throughout the region.  Other major transcriptions have included Ecstatic Orange (M. Torke) and Idyllwild Crown (C. Theofanidis).  As a saxaphonist, Hollinger is an active recitalist, orchestral and chamber artist.

Hollinger holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Wind Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.  Additional degrees include Masters of Music degrees in Classical Saxaphone Performance, Composition, and Wind Conducting, as well as a B. S. in Music Education and a B. A. in Music.  Hollinger has served on the faculties of Cornerstone University and the Sunderman Conservatory of Music, Gettysburg College.  

Dr. Hollinger makes his home in Canton, Missouri, with his wife, daughter, and son.


HONORING THE PAST DIRECTORS OF THE QUINCY CONCERT BAND:

PAUL DUKER:

Paul Duker

Paul Duker founded the Quincy Concert Band in 1982 under its original name, the Quincy  Breakfast  Kiwanis Concert Band. He conducted the band until 1984, when it reorganized and became the Quincy Community Concert Band in 1984.  Although his tenure as a conductor ended, Duker continued to serve on the Board of Directors, and also played in the band for many years.  
Duker's service in the Army from 1967 to 1970 included a tour of duty in Viet Nam.  Then, after working at United High School in Tolono, Illinois, and then at the Effingham, Illinois, Public Schools as band director, Duker became the elementary and junior high band director for Quincy Public Schools - a position he held until 1985.  He continued with QPS as the principal of Baldwin School until his retirement in 1994.  
Paul Duker passed away in 2013, after a 28-year battle with health problems caused by Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam.  In 2016, the Duker family commissioned a special band composition, "Elegy for the Wall's Unnamed", honoring Paul Duker and all other servicemen affected by Agent Orange.  The Quincy Concert Band performed this work at its March 16, 2016 concert, and also at Illinois Music Educators' Conference in Peoria on January 28, 2017.


DALE KIMPTON:

Dale Kimpton

Dale Kimpton (1927-2003) was the Quincy Concert Band's director from 1985 to 1996.   Following a brief stint in the Army, at Fort Benning, Georgia and Fort Riley, Kansas, he attended Northwestern University, where he obtained both bachelors and masters degrees in music education. Mr. Kimpton led music programs in Earlville and Macomb, Illinois before moving to Quincy in 1955, where he followed Paul Morrison and Dan Perino to become band director at QHS and Supervisor of music for the Quincy Public Schools. The music program gained regional prominence for its excellence during Kimpton’s Years, and visitors came from across the country to learn from the comprehensive model that Kimpton developed. In 1969 Kimpton became Professor of Music Education and Director of Continuing Education in Music at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where he also directed the famed Illinois Summer Youth Music Program. Mr. Kimpton was a popular clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator across the Midwest. He retired from the university in 1985. He and his wife Barbara returned to Quincy, where he worked for the Quincy Society of Fine Arts and was conductor of what was then called the the Quincy Community Band.  (Herald-Whig photo)


WILLIAM DE MONT:

Bill DeMont

William DeMont was the conductor of the Quincy Concert Band from 1996 to 2008. He received his Bachelor degree in Music Education from Quincy College in 1973, and his Master degree in Music Education from the University of Illinois in 1978.  DeMont served in the Army as a clarinetist with the 5th United States Army Band and served a tour of duty in Viet Nam. He then taught at Perry, Illinois before being employed as a music teacher in the Mendon, Illinois School District where he taught instrumental, vocal and general music from 1974 until his retirement in 2005.  DeMont has conducted and played in several musicals for the Quincy Community Theatre, and has performed with the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, Muddy River Opera Orchestra, Quincy Park Band, Quincy Concert Band, the Big River Swing Machine as well as other local and regional groups.  DeMont was a recipient of the Carl A. Landrum Notre Dame Band Alumni Award and the Charles R. Winking Memorial Award from Quincy University. He resides in Quincy with his wife Laurie and remains involved in music performance.