Dennis L. Horton, Professor of Trumpet at Central Michigan University, has been a member of the School of Music faculty since 1968, teaching applied trumpet, brass techniques, brass choir, trumpet ensemble, and theory related subjects. Dr. Horton, during his tenure at CMU, has served as Principal Trumpet of several orchestras in the state (including the Midland Symphony Orchestra 1977-1991) and from 1982-1999, was a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra trumpet section. His professional performing activities have taken him to many of the important concert venues in America including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center (New York), the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, and Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. He also was Principal Trumpet in a PBS National Broadcast (1979) of a revival of Aaron Copland's opera "The Tender Land" with the composer as conductor.

Dr. Horton established the CMU Brass Band in the fall of 2000 and has developed the ensemble into a nationally recognized brass band. The band has, in addition to two yearly concerts on campus, been featured at the Ford Performing Arts Center in Dearborn in April 2006, and was the featured ensemble at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids (DeVos Hall) in January, 2007. Over one hundred brass and percusssion players have been a part of the band in its ten year history. Soloists have included CMU faculty, students, alumni, and Philip Smith (2002 and 2010), Principal Trumpet of the New York Philharmonic. The CMU Brass Band performs a wide cross section of literature including some of the most difficult test pieces of the British Brass Band world.

Dr. Horton has numerous published compositions and arrangements and to date has sixteen works for trumpet ensemble. The "Suite for Six Trumpets" (1989) has been featured throughout the world: at the International Trumpet Guild Conferences (1990, 1998, and 1999), at the Vienna Hochschule fur Musik, The Graz Festival (Austria) and, in December, 1999 on Austria 01 Radio on a live broadcast. His composition Prelude "Laudes Domine" ("When morning gilds the skies") was a prize-winner in the 1994 Millar Brass Ensemble Composition Contest. Dr. Horton's CMU Alumni Trumpet Ensemble performed and recorded his "Suite for Six Trumpets" which is on the inaugural School of Music CD (1998).

In the recent past, Dr. Horton has been directly involved in the preparation and publication of several works of Professor Clifford P. Lillya (Earl V. Moore Professor Emeritus - The University of Michigan) including Trumpet Technic, an important pedagogical book for the university studio teacher, and band arrangements of several solo works including Barat’s Andante and Scherzo, Vidal’s Concertino, and Mendelssohn’s "Nocturne” from A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Dr. Horton holds the B.M., M.M., and A.Mus.D. (Performance) from The University of Michigan where he studied with Clifford P. Lillya. He is a founding member of the International Trumpet Guild, and holds Honorary Memberships in the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.