AURORA— Stephen Thurlow, Marmion Academy’s band director for 33 years, will direct his final concert May 12 during the Marmion Academy Fine Arts Forum.
Forum activities will begin at 6 p.m. in Marmion Academy’s Alumni Hall gymnasium 1000 Butterfield Road.
Thurlow began his work at Marmion in 1983. Previously, he had taught three years with the Madison Area Catholic Band Program and two years at Cambria Friesland School District in Wisconsin.
Other teaching assignments included teaching horn at North Central College and at Blue Lake’s Fine Arts Camp, and directing with the Naperville Summer Place.
Thurlow was principal horn with the Fox River Valley Symphony under Harold Bauer from 1988 to 1996.
Thurlow directed the Aurora All City Jazz Ensemble and Musical Exploration from 1996 to 2009 through the City of Aurora.
He studied horn with Helen Kotas Hirsch (Chicago Symphony), Paul Ingraham (Yale), Doug Hill and Nancy Becknell (University of Wisconsin) and graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1976 and a master’s in music in 1977.
He was a student of band director H. Robert Reynolds at the University of Wisconsin and continued his studies in conducting with Mighty Johnson at St. Olaf.
Thurlow is a member of the American School Band Directors Association and both Illinois and Wisconsin Music Educators assocations.