The KU Trumpet Ensemble/KUTE, under the direction of KU Trumpet Professor Steve Leisring, performed in Sydney, Australia, at the International Trumpet Guild Conference this summer.

The KUTE performed in front of a large audience in Sydney’s City Concert Hall as a prelude to a gala featuring Les Trompettes de Lyon from France, and the group also performed two world premieres: “Fandango,” co-written by group alumnus James Henry and Leisring; and “Fanfare For Those Who Served,” written for the KU Trumpet Ensemble by Kansas City Symphony Principal Trumpeter Gary Schutza. Seventeen KU graduate and undergraduate students performed along with one recent alumnus, making the KU Trumpet Ensemble the largest student group from anywhere in the world to perform and attend the 2010 Sydney Conference.

Under Leisring’s direction, the KUTE is made up of KU students from the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America, and have toured China, performed with the Kansas City Symphony, on public television, at the Kansas Music Educator’s Conference in Wichita. The group can be heard on the Potenza Music record label. The KUTE trip was sponsored by the Reach Out Kansas Inc.