TubaForum.net

.... J. Lesley Varner? He was a HUGE deal in the 1970s. He did one of the 1975-76 tuba recitals in Carnegie Hall. Any info would be appreciated....

tclements wrote: Sun Jun 14, 2026 10:49 am .... J. Lesley Varner? He was a HUGE deal in the 1970s. He did one of the 1975-76 tuba recitals in Carnegie Hall. Any info would be appreciated....

Thank-you for asking...From time-to-time, I've wondered the same thing.

OK...
I found this stuff over at the old place:

If I recall correctly, Harvey told me that he left playing and teaching to get involved with the family jewelry business. But, I may not recall correctly.

_______________________________________

[AS OF 2018] Per Carole Nowicke, he is still alive and living in Texas, and she now owns his old 3/4 RM.

At the first TUBA bash at Indiana in 1973, I remember he and Bob Tucci and Dan Perantoni playing "Ludus," a tuba trio written by Nehlybel, with Nehlybel conducting. Even all these years later, I remember the impression that performance made on me.

I thought it was a furniture store, but he definitely went back to manage his family’s store. I believe he taught at what is now Texas State University for a short time after he left BSU

tclements wrote: Sun Jun 14, 2026 11:51 am At the first TUBA bash at Indiana in 1973, I remember he and Bob Tucci and Dan Perantoni playing "Ludus,"

Several years ago I heard Gene Pokorny, Chris Olka and Keating Johnson play Ludus. I was about five rows back from the stage and the floor shook. Wow.

It's interesting that he left Ball State, because I know a former tenured trumpet professor who left there as well - to do not particularly anything.
I don't think it's because they disliked their job, but I think it was a thing of them and their spouse working in totally different cities hundreds of miles apart, and coming to the decision that either they were married or they weren't. ...and deciding that they were.

Re: Lesley Varner (Ball State)
Post by runelk » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:27 pm

He was my undergrad teacher at what was then Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) in San Marcos, Tx. He was part-time faculty and worked in his parents jewelry store that was on the main strip by the campus. This was '81-'84. He left SWT at the end of the 1984 school year. He was a great teacher and friend. Met up with him in 1990 in San Marcos and he was mainly selling diamonds wholesale. He had not kept up with the tuba world since he left teaching and he stopped playing. He looked the same but with a little more grey hair.

bloke wrote: Sun Jun 14, 2026 3:52 pm It's interesting that he left Ball State, because I know a former tenured trumpet professor who left there as well - to do not particularly anything.
I don't think it's because they disliked their job, but I think it was a thing of them and their spouse working in totally different cities hundreds of miles apart, and coming to the decision that either they were married or they weren't. ...and deciding that they were.

If it is the same person, her husband is an fantastic trombonist who now has a job at a flagship school known for their football program. If so, she soloed with the BSU Wind group at CBDNA when we were there, fantastic, but I think the performance was overshadowed by ours, who featured Michael Sachs on trumpet, though I thought she played just as well.

There isn't much in Muncie, literally not much unless you like mason jars. I spent some time there, as my tuba friend the late Tracy Luna was a DA student there, had a piano friend do a DA there as well, met Gene Pokorny for the first time there and heard him in recital in Sursa Hall. The one thing going to BSU has going is how close it is, aka a day's drive or less to hear orchestras such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh perform.

At one of the first International Tuba Symposia, if not at the very first one, he was on some panel or other pontificating on some topic while smoking his pipe. The bowl of the pipe separated from the stem and burned his beard for a few seconds.

Yeah, I was there at the T.U.B.A. in Indiana in 1973. There was a piece called"Whales" that we played. I was a euphonium major at Capital University Conservatory of Music in Columbus, Ohio at the time. Anybody remember who wrote it?
Brent