Dr. Thomas Bough joined the faculty of Northern Illinois University in the fall of 2005 as Director of Athletic Bands. He also conducts the Wind Symphony and teaches graduate conducting and instrumental arranging. Dr. Bough holds a MM and DMA in Tuba Performance from Arizona State University, where he was a student of Sam Pilafian and Dan Perantoni. Previously, he taught at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona. In the summer of 2018, he began the trial judging process with DCI as a music analysis and brass judge.
Dr. Bough's diverse performance and conducting background includes wind bands, brass bands, orchestras, chamber music, jazz bands, Dixieland, the Walt Disney World All-American College Band and the Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps. He is a Yamaha Performing Artist and performs on the 822 C tube and the 822 F tuba. Dr. Bough served as a brass consultant and guest instructor with The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps for six years, and he was an instructor with the Phantom Regiment Alumni Corps in 2016. Dr. Bough has contributed nearly twenty articles and hundreds of new music reviews to The Instrumentalist magazine, School Band and Orchestra magazine and DCI Today as well as articles to multiple volumes of the Teaching Music through Performance series and Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz.
Dr. Bough is an active conductor, arranger, composer, clinician and adjudicator for concert band, marching band and brass band with dozens of appearances per year to his credit across the United States. His music is published by Alfred Music, Cimarron Music Press and GPG Publications. He has served as a frequent master class clinician and/or conductor for the Music for All Summer Symposium and the Music for All National Concert Band Festival. Dr. Bough has presented at the Midwest Clinic, US Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Workshop, International Horn Symposium, International Society for Music Education Conference, National Association for Music Education multi-state regional conventions, Texas Bandmasters Association Convention and Music Educators Association's state conferences in eighteen states.
In May 2014, Dr. Bough's first compact disc, Concertos for Brass: The Music of Thomas Bough, was released. The disc features three original concerti for solo brass instruments and wind band as well as a transcription of the "Concerto in Eb" by Neruda. Dr. Bough has been commissioned to write several other works, including "Musings on Mahler" (solo trumpet and band), "Legacy of Luther" for Concordia University Chicago, "Air Mobility Fanfare" for the U.S. Air Force Band at Scott Air Force Base, "Poorest of the Poor: Music for Mother Teresa" for the University of San Diego, "Fortress of Peace" for the Southwest Community Concert Band, "Leviathan" for Hubble Middle School and "Burn" (alto saxophone and band) for Dr. Greg Dewhirst at Texas Wesleyan University.
