Fred Mills, a trumpeter with renowned brass quintet Canadian Brass, has died after being involved in a car accident earlier this week. He was 74.
The Canadian musician began playing brass after buying a cornet from a travelling salesman. He subsequently studied at the Juilliard School in New York where he was invited to join the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently played trumpet for a number of US orchestras, before joining the Canadian Brass group in 1972. Mills brought a solid musical foundation to the group, and arranged many of the pieces they performed.
He toured the world with Canadian Brass, while making recordings for various major record companies and picking up a Grammy nomination in 1992. He left the group in 1996 to become a professor at the University Of Georgia, but remained active as a soloist around the world.
Paying tribute to their former member, Canadian Brass posted a tribute on their website this week, saying: "Fred lofted the piccolo trumpet into an indispensable role in the brass quintet, brought a new level of musical quality to the brass quintet repertoire through his arrangements, many of which are now considered absolute standard repertoire, and spent over fifty years helping establish the trumpet as a beautiful, lyrical voice amongst solo orchestral instruments".
They continue: "He inspired so many people as a founding member of the Canadian Brass from its formation. He had a unique ability to communicate through music and on a personal level. Through the excellence of his performances and the quality of his arrangements he helped lift the brass quintet repertoire from a curiosity to a legitimate and accepted art form rivalling the string quartet. His dedication and natural talent as a communicator to passing his love of music on to young people is part of his continuing legacy to the international world of music. He was a Canadian treasure who changed the world's musical perspective".