Our Music Director

Conductor Trevor Wagler has led the Waterloo Concert Band since 2006, and is currently the third-longest-serving director in the Band’s remarkable history. He is owner and Director of Premier School of the Arts (“Waterloo Region’s Finest Arts Education Centre”), as well as a freelance French horn player (on both modern and historical instruments), organist, composer, arranger/orchestrator, music editor/copyist and clinician.

He holds a Bachelor Degree in Music Composition, a Diploma in Performance, and a Diploma in Chamber Music from Wilfrid Laurier University, as well as a Masters of Music Degree in horn performance from Western University. He has performed with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, Tafelmusik, Orchestra London / London Sinfonia, the Hamilton Philharmonic, the Nota Bene Period Orchestra, the Windsor Symphony, the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and more, sharing the stage with the likes of Dianna Krall, Anne Murray, Michael Burgess and Howard Cable.

Passionate about music education, Trevor maintains an active teaching schedule at Premier School of the Arts, and holds contract faculty positions at both Laurier University and the University of Waterloo (Conrad Grebel University College). He founded the Kitchener-Waterloo Youth Concert Band (KW YCB) in 2017.

As an experienced composer/arranger/orchestrator, Trevor has written more than 1000 scores for orchestras, bands, chamber ensembles and soloists around the world. Recent commissions include arranging new orchestral charts for NYC saxophone soloist (and YouTube sensation) Leo P with the Kingston Symphony, new music for the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), editing/typesetting music for Ottawa’s Platypus Theatre and Canadian Composer Alexina Louie, several new arrangements for concert band, as well as pop vocal arrangements for Pop Nation Canada and the Laurier Vox Ensemble.

In 2016 he was instrumental in bringing one of the late Howard Cable’s last completed compositions – a tribute to legendary Waterloo conductor C.F. Thiele – to a successful and historic world premiere with the Waterloo Concert Band.

Trevor is a member of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, the International Horn Society, the Historic Brass Society and the National Geographic Society.

Trevor resides in Waterloo, Ontario with his soulmate, flutist Wendy Wagler, and three fabulous children.