Thomas V. Fraschillo has served as catalyst and mentor for the music profession in the area of Wind Music for 38 years. His influence on extremely high standards of performance has been felt by virtually every wind music organization in the Southeast and his performances serve as models throughout the world whether in the professional or academic arena. Through his recent recordings, The Music of Luigi Zaninelli and L’Orchestra di fiati-University of Southern Mississippi Wind Ensemble (recorded in Italy with the USM Wind Ensemble), and his publishing, conducting, and lecturing in the United States, Europe, and Australia he is considered an international musician/scholar.

His most recent publications, a translation from the original Italian of Alessandro Vessella’s Studi di strumentazione (Instrumentation Studies) published by BMG Ricordi, Milan, and distributed in the United States by Shawnee Press, and La Tecnica dell’orchestra contemporanea (The Technique of Contemporary Orchestration), by Alessandro Casella and Vittorio Mortari, published by BMG Ricordi and distributed in the United States by Hal Leonard Publications, have put his name in music libraries of the entire English speaking world. The translation of the Casella/Mortari makes available an English version of probably the most significant music publication on writing for orchestra in Europe after the Second World War. Further Dr. Fraschillo serves as a frequent conductor and lecturer in Italy as an American scholar. It should be noted that he lectures in Italy in the Italian language.

His most recent conducting in Italy has been with La banda dell’esercito/The Italian Army Band from Rome. One of his most significant engagements with them occurred in the summer of 2002 and signaled a very important milestone for the Italian Army in that Dr. Fraschillo was the first American born conductor to have been invited to appear in a public performance by what is considered Italy’s most prestigious military concert band. The concert with Dr. Fraschillo conducting was the opening concert of the International Festival in Spoleto, “The Festival of Two Worlds, Festival dei due mondi.” His appearance was enormously significant for conductors of bands in that the opening performance featured such international artists as Gian Carlo Menotti, the renowned composer who organized and began the event some 30 years ago, the Orchestra and Giuseppe Verdi Chorus of Milan with Ricardo Chailly conducting, and the famous Italian actress, Claudia Cardinale whose work was being displayed in a film retrospective.

In 2005, the Melbourne, Australia, Summer Youth Music Program invited Dr. Fraschillo to be their guest conductor for a week long session, and in 2006 he returned to be guest lecturer for the Australian Band and Orchestra Directors Association followed by another week of guest conducting with the Melbourne group. His performance in the Melbourne Town Hall received significant acclaim by critics in the Australian press, something normally reserved for strictly professional performances.

Dr. Fraschillo has devoted a significant amount of his career to the education of young people in the urban and rural environments of Mississippi. For example his ten-year tenure at Meridian High School was highlighted by an invitation to perform at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious music event for wind and string educators. The invitation was only the second to have been given to a band from Mississi ppi until now. In December, 2001, a former USM student of Dr.Fraschillo, Mohamad Schuman of Stone County High School, was the third conductor to take a group from Mississippi to perform for this international audience. Further Dr. Fraschillo’s students have broken barriers not before reached, for he taught and helped place the first two African-American female students from Meridian, Vanessa Cox and Melanie Thomas, in the Mississippi All-State Band. Not only were they the first minority female members, but they were also the first African-American young women to be in the very highest positions in the group.

Dr. Fraschillo has attained a level of international leadership that has significantly elevated the awareness of bands by professional musicians from throughout the USA, Europe, Asia, and Canada in that he has served as President of the world’s largest organization for band directors, the National Band Association, and now serves as its Executive Secretary/Treasurer. As president of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, Dr. Fraschillo follows in this office a long line of distinguished conductors. Further he serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago based Sudler Foundation, a foundation that enhances the music education and experiences of young people through the John Philip Sousa Honor Bands and various competitions for young conductors, e.g., the Sir Georg Solti International Young Conductors Competition in honor of the late Sir Georg Solti, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Under his leadership the University of Southern Mississippi’s Wind Ensemble has been featured on frequent public radio broadcasts in Mississippi, on Performance Today, a program of PRI (Public Radio International), and has performed for many regional and national conventions including two of the American Bandmasters Association and three of the College Band Director’s National Association. In 1998, he brought the national convention of the American Bandmasters Association to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for its annual meeting. As a result of all of the above he is constantly in demand as a conductor and lecturer throughout the world and attracts a steady stream of graduate students to USM to study in its Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting degree program.

Presently, Dr. Fraschillo served as the president of the National Band Association, the world's largest organization for band directors. Other memberships include the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, the College Band Directors National Association, the Mississippi Bandmasters Association, Phi Beta Mu, Phi Delta Kappa, and various fraternal organizations. In all of these organizations, Dr. Fraschillo has served in various capacities. Other than the presidency of the NBA, his most recent appointments have been as the CBDNA president in the Southern Division and first vice-president of the NBA. As a clinician and adjudicator, he is constantly in demand.