N.Y. Philharmonic trumpeter, Juilliard teacher, dies at 93

NEW YORK – William Vacchiano, a trumpeter whose musical career started in Maine and took him to New York Philharmonic and The Juilliard School, has died at 93.

Vacchiano was principal trumpet for 31 years at the New York Philharmonic and he never missed a performance before leaving in 1973. He continued to a teach until 2002 at The Juilliard School, where his students included Wynton Marsalis and Miles Davis.

He died Monday at Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan from respiratory failure.

As a boy in Portland, Maine, Vacchiano’s path to music started on a sour note when he crashed his bicycle into a neighborhood boy and dented the boy’s baritone. Vacchiano agreed to accompany the boy to his music lesson to explain what happened.

“The teacher saw a potential student in me and asked me if I’d like to study an instrument,” Vacchiano recalled in a 1977 interview. “I said, ‘Yes, I’d love to’ – anything to get out of there.”

The Juilliard Journal added to the story by noting that Vacchiano’s father, who spoke Italian, had wanted his son to try the “clarinetto,” or clarinet. Vacchiano, apparently confused, came home with a “coronetto,” or coronet, similar to a trumpet.

“His mother unwittingly helped seal her son’s future when she remarked, ‘What’s the difference?”‘ Lisa Robinson wrote in 2003.

Vacchiano began taking lessons around age 8, and he began playing in the Portland Symphony Orchestra when he was 14.

His talent drew notice quickly. After attending Juilliard, he joined the Philharmonic’s trumpet section in 1935.

That same year, Vacchiano joined the Juilliard staff. He estimated that he taught 2,000 students over the course of 67 years, and there are probably “only a handful of trumpet players in any major orchestra who haven’t taken a lesson from him,” said his former student and friend, Lee Soper of Greenwich, Conn.

He retired from Juilliard in 2002 and was awarded an honorary doctorate a year later. He also taught at four other schools, published numerous trumpet method books and designed his own line of trumpet mouthpieces.

Back in Maine, everybody was always excited to hear “Uncle Willy” share jokes and stories about his travels. “This man could tell a thousand stories and never repeat himself,” his sister-in-law, Marie Vacchiano, told the Portland Press Herald.

A trumpet ensemble will play at his funeral Saturday at the Church of the Holy Family in Flushing, Queens.