Assistant Professor of Trombone John Gruber gave a solo recital with Collaborative Pianist HyunSoo Kim on Sunday. In addition to his teaching and performing on campus, he is principal trombonist of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and has held tenured positions at the Adrian Symphony, the Lansing Symphony, and the Youngstown Symphony. He has also performed with ensembles such as the Brass Band of Battle Creek, the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, the Canton Symphony, the Toledo Symphony, the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He won the 2010 Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Brass Competition and has appeared as a soloist at the International Trombone Festival in both 2019 and 2023.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Would you describe your path to trombone and how you got here?

My path to trombone was kind of silly in a lot of ways, because I had no formal musical training growing up besides elementary school music classes and playing on a little electronic keyboard. I never actually got any good at playing the piano, but I got into trombone at my band class’ instrument tryout day when I was 10. I wanted to play the trombone because it had no buttons, so I thought it would be easier than anything else. My band directors were excited because I was really tall for a fifth grader, so I had long enough arms to reach all the positions.

After that, I went to undergrad for music education. I was a band director for a couple of years. I taught public school in rural eastern Ohio and went back to graduate school for performance. I won some regional orchestra jobs and did some recitals. I ended up getting a job interview at The Ohio State University and taught there for a while. Then I got an interview here at Oberlin, and I’ve been here ever since.

What was the inspiration behind this recital?

I needed a project to get me practicing. I had a daughter almost two years ago. She’s 20 months old now and she’s at daycare five days a week, and I needed the motivation to practice more. Practice time has been really hard to come by since having her, and a lot of my colleagues said the same was true for them. There’s not much sleep, there’s a lot of distractions, and the kid is super hands-on because they can’t do anything for themselves. So much of your time and energy gets eaten. It’s hard to have time to devote to your art and your craft. This recital was a reason to show up and practice: I have something on the calendar and I’m going to get up in front of a crowd and play, and it’ll force me to get back into it.

How do you balance your personal life with being a professor and performer?

I’ll tell you when I figure it out. If I’m completely transparent, we’re all just doing our best. Adulting doesn’t get easier just because you’re 30 or 40 or 50. I go day by day. I exercise two days a week. I’ve shifted from riding my bike to lifting weights, because in two hours of that I can get a lot more work done. I’ve been trying to actually schedule time in my day to practice before my lessons. It’s the same thing we tell you guys to do, and that every professor here tells every student: schedule your practice. We just have to do our taxes at the same time. All the things that you struggle with — the self-doubt and the imposter syndrome, those nagging doubts and those monologues inside our heads — those are all things that all the adults in your life struggle with. It’s not just you.

How do you keep your passion for music alive when you’re constantly surrounded by it?

The thing that I’m finding lately is that I’m at my peak inspiration when I’m watching non-trombone players. I felt super inspired after hearing Emanuel Ax play on campus. When I go see a voice master class or a clarinet class and get to watch other people who talk about music and function in the high level of music, but through a completely different idiom and lens than I do, I find that really often inspires me. I also get really inspired by having guest artists come in and work with my students. We had Kenneth Thompkins, who’s the former principal trombone of the Detroit Symphony, work with my students last Thursday during my studio class. I find it super interesting and helpful to watch someone else work with my students. It gives me a chance to listen with fresh ears and see the choices other teachers make. What are the things that they hear in my students? What are the things they choose to prioritize in their conversations? I find that really invigorating and refreshing.

What sort of things are you interested in doing outside music?

I really like airplanes. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an airline pilot, but I’m also red-green color blind, so I can’t fly for a living. That was my dream job for my entire childhood. It still is in many ways, but I can’t get the medical certificate. Also, because I have a young daughter, I can’t afford flight school to get a private license. But I have a gaming PC, and I fly virtual airplanes on it after she goes to bed for half an hour before I go to bed.

I also love cooking when I have time and energy to whip up something delicious. My parents just moved to Oberlin a few months ago. They live down the street from us, so on Sundays I’ll take my daughter to see them and we’ll make cookies. Also, I play with my kid, if I can get her to let me pick her up and hold her. She’s at the age where she wants to run around and explore and do everything on her own.

What’s the biggest thing that you want to impart on your students?

If there’s one lesson for my students, it’s that being a good human and a good colleague is at least as important as being a great artist. I think all of us can immediately think of three or four people who are remarkable artists, world-class talents, who are not such great human beings. It’s important for us to have a legacy of impacting not just the artistic world through our craft, but also potentially the biggest impact you’re going to make — on other people through the relationships you make, the kind of human being you are, and the energy you bring to the rehearsals and space you’re in. In the long run, those are the things that are going to serve you best, whether you end up making a career as a performer or you end up in arts administration or you end up going to law school. They serve us in anything we do in life.