Raymond Premru

Raymond Eugene Premru (June 6, 1934 – May 8, 1998) was an American trombonist, composer, and teacher who spent most of his career in London, England. Life and career The son of a Methodist minister, Premru was born in Elmira, New York and grew up in the Finger Lakes region south of Rochester. As a teenager he started playing the trombone and studied with Dale Clark at the Eastman School of Music’s preparatory department. After high school he enrolled at Eastman to study trombone with Emory Remington and composition with Louis Mennini and Bernard Rogers. Soon after graduating in 1956, he travelled to England for composition study with Peter Racine Fricker, intending to stay a few months. He began freelancing on trombone and bass trumpet, becoming a regular in the London jazz scene with groups like the Kenny Baker Dozen. In 1958, he won the bass trombone position in the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he performed for the next 30 years. In 1958 he married Susan Talbot, with whom he had two daughters. As a session musician, he worked with Frank Sinatra, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles (on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). In 1964 he joined the