Overview
Ralph Thomas Dudgeon is a musician and scholar known for his performances on period instruments and in contemporary repertoire. He earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a Master of Arts in trumpet performance and a Bachelor of Arts in music education from San Diego State University.
Dudgeon has performed as a trumpet soloist and conductor across the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and China. His debut solo album, “Music for Keyed Bugle,” was the first full-length recording devoted to the keyed bugle. His research and performances helped revive the keyed bugle in the twentieth century. He has recorded for the Musical Heritage Society, Music Masters, Newport Classic, Nimbus, Hyperion, Innova, and Spring Tree labels.
Dudgeon began his career as a high school music teacher in California in 1970. From 1981 to 1985, he served on the music faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a Professor of Music Emeritus at the State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught music history and trumpet from 1985 to 2012. He also taught trumpet at Colgate University from 2004 to 2014. From 1996 to 2011, he worked as a research consultant for the Instrumentenmuseum, Schloß Kremsegg, in Kremsmünster, Upper Austria.
Dudgeon contributed articles to the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, the American Musical Instrument Society Journal, the International Trumpet Guild Journal, Ovation, and the Historic Brass Society Journal, as well as two chapters to the Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments. His 1993 book, The Keyed Bugle (Scarecrow Press), offers definitive research on that instrument. The second, expanded edition of The Keyed Bugle was published in 2004. PPVMEDIEN GmbH published Dudgeon’s Das Flügelhorn (2003) in both German and English. This work provides a history of the flugelhorn and features more than a hundred color photographs of instruments in the Instrumentenmuseum, Schloß Kremsegg, Upper Austria. In 2006, Dudgeon received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities from the State University of New York.
Dudgeon maintains a busy schedule as a trumpet performer and teacher. He serves as principal trumpet with the Catskill Symphony, the Clinton Symphony Orchestra of the Mohawk Valley, the Colgate University Orchestra, and the Arcadia Chorale Festival Orchestra. He currently teaches trumpet at Cornell and Colgate Universities.
