Missouri Arts Council picks tubaist Ralph Hepola for April Featured Artists

[RalphHepola]

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FEATURED ARTISTS PROGRAM

Artists are the backbone of our creative state. Get to know some of the best right here!

Each month, we’re designating four individual artists from all around Missouri as Featured Artists. They create and perform in every sort of genre, from sculpture to storytelling.

Meet our April Featured Artists!

RALPH HEPOLA
musician | Springfield

JAZZIZ Magazine has called me “a musician who plays the language of contemporary jazz on the tuba.” I play the same types of ideas as trumpeters, saxophonists, and pianists.

One of the main goals in the arts world is to create something new. That’s what everyone including me is trying to do. I believe that creating something new, even in a “niche” of the arts world, is truly an accomplishment. I’ve always improvised on the tuba, but as a teen I won a position in the U.S. Army Band of Washington, D.C., followed by a music degree at Northwestern University, the Basel Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland, then freelancing in New York City and Minneapolis/St. Paul. I’ve played on 41 recordings and 34 video productions. Two years ago, my creative life entered this new era of exclusively improvising on the tuba.

ralphhepola.com

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