ShowMe Brass Band
Individual Pages
Donald Burke-Aguero
Instrument Cornet, Flugel, Trumpet
Occupation Professor of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Missouri, where he leads a group that is using RNA and the tools of molecular evolution to do research into synthetic biology, antiviral and antibacterial therapeutics, and the origin of life. His group gets research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA and several private foundations.
Music Background Donald has played trumpet for 33 years. After starting on flute in junior high, he switched to brass as a freshman at Fayette (MO) High School in 1977, the same year that Skip Vandelicht became Director of Bands. He studied under Roger Stoner at the University of Kansas, along with occasional lessons from Alex Picard at the University of Missouri and Keith House at Central Methodist University. While chasing his PhD in Chemistry at UC Berkeley, he was co-principal of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under Michael Senturia. Then it was pretty sparse from 1992 to 2005, playing for a few weeks or months at a time, and then laying off for another few weeks or months.
In December of 2005 he chanced across Robert Bray at "The 240 Diner" in Fayette - one that he had not gone to previously or since. Bob asked Donald if he still played the trumpet and invited him to join the Columbia Community Band. "I couldn't bring myself to say that I USED to play trumpet," he said. "It is part of who I am." So he got the horn back out, woke up the embouchure and joined CCB in January of 2006.
He first heard the ShowMe Brass Band when Steve Fair - whom he met through CCB - encouraged him to come to an outdoor performance during Columbia's Twilight Festival in the summer of 2007. "It was great. Musically rich, well-performed, and they even had piccolo and E-flat trumpets playing in tune. That's a group I'd like to be good enough to be in. It was going to be a serious commitment, though, and the timing was not yet right." He sat in on a couple of rehearsals in April of 2009, and things clicked right away. "The ride since then has been one of the most challenging and rewarding musical experiences of my life. It's great."
Hobbies Biking, hanging out with my wife and two nearly-grown kids, reading fantasy novels, chasing Little Green Men for NASA, and slaying HIV for the NIH.
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