Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival

The Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival ("Falcone Festival" or simply "Falcone" for short) is an amateur tuba and euphonium festival and competition, held annually the second week in August at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp at Twin Lake, Michigan.

Leonard Falcone (b. 1899 Roseto Valfortore, Italy, d. 1985 East Lansing Michigan) was a longtime director of bands and professor at Michigan State University who taught, performed and recorded as a master of the baritone horn and a pioneer of euphonium artistry. The festival was founded by former Falcone students in 1986, to honor his memory. Among its stated goals are to enhance the repertoire of the euphonium and tuba through the commissioning of new works, to promote outstanding artistry on these instruments, and to encourage young people to study them.

Over the years, the Festival has become highly competitive and visible; it is among the most prestigious amateur competitions for both the tuba and euphonium.

Presently, there are four divisions: Student Tuba and Student Euphonium, for players age 20 and younger, and Artist Tuba and Artist Euphonium, for amateur players of any age^†, though in reality this translates to college students, mostly at the graduate level.

^†The official rules of eligibility state that "[p]articipants must not be a [sic] full-time paid professional (trombone, euphonium, or tuba) in either a performance position or a college teaching position." [1]

The Falcone Festival has undergone several changes since its inception. Some prominent developments include:

For each Division, there is a specific set of repertoire that must be performed, including:

Repertoire for all divisions may be found and ordered off of the festival web site[2].

Players seeking to enter the festival must submit a recording via tape or CD of themselves, with piano accompaniment, performing the preliminary-round piece. Recordings must be submitted by March 31; following this, a panel of adjudicators listens to the recordings, which are anonymous, and selects 6 (Student) or 10 (Artist) players from each Division to invite to the competition, as well as anywhere from 0-3 alternates for each division.

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