Elk Mound native featured on public radio

By LeAnn R. Ralph

ELK MOUND — Although Anna Jacobson grew up surrounded by music, she never realized she could make a career out of music until she received a college scholarship.

Jacobson, who graduated from Elk Mound High School in 2004 as Anna Suechting, was interviewed on the Wisconsin Public Radio program Spectrum West on January 23 prior to a performance of the brass trio she plays with, V3nto, at the Heyde Center for the Arts in Chippewa Falls January 26.

Jacobson is the horn player for the trio.

Vento is the Italian word for “wind,” and so the members of the brass trio chose “V3nto” for their group, which also features a trumpet and a trombone.

Jacobson earned a Bachelor of Music from Lawrence University and a Master of Music from DePaul University.

In addition to musical performances, she also teaches the horn and the violin.

Jacobson said she began playing the horn in fifth grade band at Elk Mound Middle School.

A professional brass trio is unusual, Jacobson said.

There are a few brass trios on university campuses among faculty members, she noted, adding that brass quartets are much more common.

Composing for a brass trio and playing in a brass trio is difficult, Jacobson said, adding that the trio uses pieces composed for them by a professional composer but that Jacobson also arranges some pieces for the trio.

Members of a trio play almost all of the time during a performance, and “your muscles get tired,” she said.

Jacobson said when she was growing up, her parents always played music and sang together.

Her family, however, had no professional musicians prior to this, she said.

V3nto does record some of their performances, and some of the recordings are available on You Tube, Jacobson said.

Gerry Murphy, high school music teacher in Elk Mound, said that Jacobson and her trio played for — and worked with — the Elk Mound High School band several days before the trio’s performance at the Heyde Center.

“It was an awesome show!” he wrote in an e-mail message to the Colfax Messenger.

Spectrum West is a weekly radio program that explores music, arts and humanities in western Wisconsin.