The Manteno Historical Society is proud to announce Timothy Salzman has been awarded the Lucille Thies Personal Achievement Award for 2024 and will be honored on Sunday, August 25, at the Society’s annual Heritage Banquet. The dinner and program begin at 12:30 p.m., at the Manteno Sportsmen’s Club. For additional information or to purchase tickets, contact Jeff Jarvis at 815-933-2055.
Timothy Salzman
Lucille Thies Personal Achievement Award
by Mary Beth Collier
Music has taken Timothy Salzman throughout the United States and the world, including more than 40 trips abroad, including South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Thailand, China, England, France, Russia, and Japan. He grew up on his family’s dairy and grain farm north of Manteno and credits his start on the farm to his success in life.
“Farm kids know how to work hard,” he told me. This humble philosophy inspired him long after he’d left Manteno, first for his work in the Midwest, then in Montana and Washington, and finally in the international music community.
Tim is the recipient of the 2024 Manteno/Rockville Historical Society’s Lucille Thies Personal Achievement Award, which honors former and current Manteno residents, who have accomplished great things outside their hometown. He was chosen for this award based on his internationally recognized accomplishments as a performer, conductor, and teacher, specializing in wind bands. The son of the late George and Beverly Salzman, Tim and his two sisters, Beryl and Christine, were raised on family, faith, and community. His experience of growing up in a farm community taught him how to approach his life and career. Just like seeds planted in a well-fertilized field, in Manteno the seeds of Tim’s musical interests yielded an abundant harvest.
For Tim, the piano was both the beginning of a life-long passion for music and an escape from farm work. His lessons at the bench piqued his interest in music; he later studied with piano faculty members at Olivet Nazarene University, who urged him to aspire to greatness. In elementary school, he began playing the oboe. In high school, when he wasn’t busy forming a rock band with friends or marching in local drum and bugle corps (the White Tornadoes of Momence), he taught himself to play the tuba. His efforts were rewarded in his senior year as Tim won the John Philip Sousa Award, an award dedicated to outstanding high school seniors, who have worked to better their band programs.
It was the tuba that launched his career. As the first chair tuba player in the Illinois All State Band, Tim chose Wheaton College to pursue a bachelor’s degree in music education. His friends in college, some of whom included world-famous trombone player Douglas Yeo and Halo video game composer Martin O’Donnell, pushed him to continue to work hard for the future he desired. At Northern Illinois University, he earned a master’s degree in music performance and studied with Arnold Jacobs, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal tuba player and a renowned pedagogue who deeply influenced his musical life.
After college, Tim went back to his roots. After applying for 80 jobs, he received an offer from Dale Hopper, his former teacher with the White Tornadoes. Tim took Dale’s position as the high school marching and concert band director at the local high school in the tiny town of Herscher. There, he was a farm kid among his own. Tim poured the lessons he had learned thus far into the students at Herscher, and their musicality and work ethic paid off, leading them to become the three-time State of Illinois Marching Band Champions in 1980, ’81, and ’82, as well as the 1982 Marching Bands of America Summer National Grand Champions.
Tim went on to have an accomplished career in drum and bugle corps, arranging and directing several renowned junior corps, two of which won the Drum Corps International World Championships. In 2014, he was inducted into the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, a graduate school classmate recruited Tim to Montana State University, where he served as the director of bands, founding the MSU Wind Ensemble and ‘Spirit of the West’ marching band. Four years later, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Washington, where he continues to serve as a professor of music and director of concert bands. Now in his 46th year of teaching, Tim continues to conduct the University of Washington Wind Ensemble and teaches graduate students in the instrumental conducting program, many of whom have become professors at university music schools throughout the country.
In addition to being on the faculty at Washington, he has been an author, visiting professor, conductor, arranger, and consultant for bands throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Tim also has conducted several military bands, including the ‘President’s Own’ United States Marine Band, the U. S. Army Field Band, U. S. Navy Band, China’s People’s Liberation Army Band, and the Singapore Armed Forces Band.
Tim lives with his wife, Jodi, in Seattle, close to his children, Jon and Leigh, while his daughter Hannah attends Biola University in Southern California. Although Tim loves the Pacific Northwest, he also fondly remembers the Midwest as a grounded place that gave him his start. The rural values of hard work and patience he learned on the farm stayed with him.
“There may be more talented people,” he said, “but I’ve always thought they will not outwork me.”