Located in the Rocky Mountains of southern New Mexico, TRN Music Publisher, Inc. has been dedicated to publishing fine Band and Orchestra music since 1973. (For those looking for anything other than sheet music, you will need to look else where, since we only sell sheet music.) TRN is perhaps more known for its European Marches, and more difficult and lengthy works, but is steadily publishing more and more young band and orchestra pieces. TRN's Music challenges not only advanced groups, but provides motivational music for young ensembles as well.
TRN Music Publisher, Inc. was founded by Charles A. "Pete" Wiley, who served as the Editor and Publisher from 1973 until 1992. From the beginning, Dr. Wiley was supported in every way by his loving wife Mary Jane Wiley. Towards the end of a distinguished career, 31 years of which were as Director of Bands at Lamar University, Dr. Wiley began TRN by publishing one piece, Antonito, which he wrote in the car on a trip with his wife.
In 1983, as he retired from band directing, Dr. Wiley wrote his philosophy about music publishing, which had been his life-long dream:
"Through my family I was immersed in a life of bands, band music, and band directors. I grew up believing that band directors were the salt of the earth. I still do! My dad and uncle (D.O. Wiley and Russell Wiley) were both fine violinists, so I have an equal love and respect for those in the orchestra world, and since Caruso and Galli-Curci were among my dad's idols, I learned to love and appreciate our vocalists as well. So it is among my ambitions to include orchestral and choral works in the TRN catalogue to allow me a closer association with these fine folks, and possibly to make some small contribution to their literature as well.
My philosophy regarding works I accept for publication is governed, I'm sure, by my own personal experiences in selecting music for performances with my own band. I particularly admire those of you who strive for the highest levels of performance with your groups, and who select music that is beautiful, exciting and musically worthy of the time you spend with it - music that elicits an audience response that helps make your efforts worthwhile and satisfying. I have been in this boat many times myself through the years as my Lamar University band performed for MENC conventions, American Bandmasters Assn. conventions, CBDNA, and TMEA conventions. Although I never had the rich reserve of talents to draw from that some of the major universities had, we for the past 20 years have had between 200 and 350 enthusiastic participants annually in our band program, and the students developed phenomenally and performed amazingly when I made the right musical selections. I've always believed that excellent performance is the lifeblood of any musical group. Music is a performing art!
So we here at TRN invite you to carefully study our catalogue. It is full of exciting, beautiful, and musically worthwhile music, at all levels.
If you ever vacation this way (in the mountains of Alto, NM), call me and come out to the house and I'll show you TRN, home of the music That's Really Nice."
One of the purposes of starting the company was to make a few marches available to other band directors that were available only in the manuscript or in European editions. But when other publishers realized that the march was not dead and started flooding the market with their own editions, Dr. Wiley decided to branch out, and try to fill some voids being left by the big publishers who had almost completely stopped publishing the difficult and lengthy works being written by America's new crop of composers.
While on a trip to Moscow, Russia in 1992 to find and publish fine band and orchestra pieces not published during the Communist regime, Dr. Wiley suffered a fatal stroke after visiting Russia's foremost composers. TRN, as run by Dr. Wiley's family, did publish the Russian pieces he discovered and has continued to pursue Dr. Wiley's intent for TRN.
In the last few years TRN has added to its catalogue almost 100 orchestral pieces as well as excellent grade 1-3 band pieces to meet the needs of the many fine orchestra programs and young school bands. The objective of TRN continues to be to make some contribution, hopefully significant, to the literature of the band / wind ensemble and orchestra.
Written by Ann Anderson