Faculty

Profile

Oscar Wiley Thorp is a conductor, trumpeter, and music educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Oscar is the conductor of the Mannes Prep Chamber Orchestra, the New York Late Starters Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Music Community’s Kings County Concert Band. As a faculty member at the Third Street Music School Settlement, Oscar directs several ensembles, including the Concert Band, Prelude Band, and the New Horizons Morning and Evening Bands. Through the InterSchool Orchestras of New York, Oscar coaches the brass in the Symphonic Band and is a substitute conductor with the ISO orchestras. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the Chelsea Symphony, the New Conductors Orchestra, the New York City Brass Choir, and Make Music New York’s Sousapalooza.

Originally from the Seattle/Tacoma area, Oscar served as assistant professor of music at Pierce College in Puyallup, WA, where he directed the Pierce College Concert Band, Chamber Winds, and Jazz Band. His position included teaching music theory, music history, and an American Popular Music survey. While in Washington, he also worked with the Puget Brass, the Seattle Symphonic Band, and as a clinician for the Washington Music Educators Association. An advocate for new music, Oscar has helped create contemporary chamber ensembles at the University of Arizona and at Pierce College, as well as conducting recordings of new music by students. Oscar has created many arrangements for virtual learning and limited instrumentation accessibility, particularly for wind bands and brass ensembles. Through his participation as a conductor with the New Horizons International Music Association, Oscar has given virtual classes on score reading and music appreciation. Oscar began his conducting career as the assistant conductor of the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestras while studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Oscar then moved to Tucson, AZ to earn his masters in instrumental conducting as a teaching assistant at the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music.  Oscar’s conducting mentors include Gregg Hanson, Raphael Jiménez, and Joann Erwin. He has participated in conducting workshops at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Puget Sound. 

Oscar is an active trumpet player in New York City. Oscar and his wife, trumpeter Caitlin Featherstone, frequently perform together with their brass ensemble, the Brownstone Brass Quintet. He regularly performs with the Chelsea Symphony, the Greenwich Village Orchestra, the Five Borough Brass Ensemble, New York Wind Orchestra, the Regina Opera Company, Blue Hill Troupe, and others. Oscar teaches trumpet lessons at Third Street Music School, and he has taught brass in the Third Street Partners Program, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Tucson Academy of Music and Dance, and the Oberlin Community Music School. He studied trumpet with Roy Poper, Edward Reid, Judson Scott, and Brian Chin.