Erwin Mueller :: Profile

Erwin Mueller

Professor of Music

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MU 9
(765) 285-5506

Fax: 285-5401

School of Music
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306

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Biography
Erwin C. Mueller, professor of the School of Music and an accomplished percussionist, teaches studio percussion and directs the Ball State Percussion and Marimba Ensembles. From 1995-2000 he was Ball State University's College of Fine Arts Sursa Distinguished Professor, an endowed professorship for which he was selected after serving 37 years on the faculty. Criteria for the honor included outstanding accomplishments as a teacher, a national reputation for distinguished work as an artist or scholar and sustained service to the university, profession and community.

He was also honored in 1995 with the Orpheus Award by the Ball State University Delta Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, National Professional Fraternity for men in the field of music. The award is given to any person who has significantly and lastingly contributed to the cause of music in America. He was named Teacher of the Week by the Ball State Daily News. In January, 1996, he was named Outstanding Administrator of the Year by the Indiana Music Educators Association during its convention in Indianapolis. He has served as President and Secertary treasurer of the Indiana Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society. For many years, he was the Associate Director of the School of Music and also served as its Interim Director.

In May 1990, the Muncie Symphony's principal timpani chair was endowed in Mueller's name. In 1992, a $250,000 gift from Linda Charman of Muncie established a Ball State distinguished music professorship and scholarship program in his honor. He has worked with the Mid-America Summer Music clinics and coordinates the annual Summer Chamber Music Festival and the Faculty Artist Series for the School of Music.

Dr. Mueller's associations with Ball State date back to his undergraduate days. He played percussion and occasionally timpani for the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, as did his teacher at Ball State, Victor Di Stafano, a former member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Following an interruption of two years of service in the U. S. Marine Corps, Mueller received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education from Ball State Teachers College (now Ball State University) in 1954. He continued his studies at Northwestern University, earning a Master of Music degree in 1955. There he studied timpani with Edward Metzenger, who at that time was solo timpanist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He first joined the faculty in 1958, and in 1976 he completed his doctorate at Ball State University.

Today Dr. Mueller has succeeded his two percussion teachers as timpanist and principal percussionist with the Muncie Symphony, having played with the orchestra intermittently since its first season in 1949. He was a part-time percussion instructor at Ball State for 12 years, commuting weekly from his Indianapolis home, before becoming a full-time member of the music faculty in 1970. During those years he served as solo timpanist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; co-founded the Indianapolis Percussion Ensemble, and co-founded and edited "Percussive Notes," a nationally distributed newsletter now associated with the Percussive Arts Society. He also was an affiliate of Young Audiences, Inc., for four years; a member of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, and an instructor of percussion at Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) for ten years.

Beginning in 1979, he was appointed president of the Indiana State Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society for several terms, and now serves as its secretary/treasurer. Currently, he is president of the Ball State Alpha Iota chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, a member of the National Honor Society in Music, and faculty advisor to the Ball State Delta Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Before going to Indianapolis in 1957, Dr. Mueller was solo timpanist with the Chattanooga Philharmonic and the Chattanooga Opera Company, band director at Hixson High School in Chattanooga, and instructor at the Sewanee Music Camp in Sewanee, Tennessee.