Mike Forbes (b. 1973) is a versatile tubist, composer, and educator whose playing has been praised by American Record Guide as “an outstanding tubist with a solid, colorful tone, terrific technical skills, and dramatic flair.” His solo recordings on Summit Records include Forbes Plays Koetsier, featuring all seven solo tuba works by Jan Koetsier, and Forbes Plays Forbes, a collection of his own compositions. He appears on the 2016 duo recording Full Tilt with Portuguese virtuoso Sérgio Carolino (the Trans‑Atlantic Tuba Connection), which showcases several of Forbes’s works for tuba duo and drums. Forbes has appeared as a featured tubist with Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band on A Prairie Home Companion, gave the first-ever solo tuba recital on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Live from the Chazen, and has been a frequent guest soloist and chamber coach worldwide.
A former Staff Sergeant with the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” Forbes spent two decades on university faculties across the East Coast and Midwest before expanding his international teaching presence. For the past decade he has been in demand in Europe as a guest lecturer at superior conservatories in Málaga (Spain) and Porto (Portugal) and as a presenter at international festivals including Salceda and Alcobaça. His residencies extend to Puerto Rico’s Wind & Song brass festival, the Texcoco Music Festival near Mexico City, guest appearances in Norway with the all-female quartet All About That Bass, and coaching and performances in Taipei. He has given clinics, masterclasses, and concerts at hundreds of U.S. schools and colleges and served as a guest artist and adjudicator at the 2020 Geneva International Tuba Competition, where his commissioned Alpine Concerto premiered as the final-round work.
An active chamber musician and founder of several ensembles, Forbes formed Isthmus Brass—Wisconsin’s leading large brass ensemble, with a Summit Records release Isthmus Brass Christmas—and the Isthmus Brass Quintet, a contemporary brass quintet with percussion. He was a co‑founder of Sotto Voce, America’s premiere tuba/euphonium quartet, which toured internationally, released multiple Summit Records titles, and performed at major events including the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, and the BrassWind Festival in Bergen, Norway.
Forbes is also a prolific composer for band, orchestra, solo brass, and small ensembles, frequently commissioned by schools, universities, and organizations. Notable recent works include Rolling Boil (premiered by the Wisconsin State High School Honors Orchestra and featured on PBS), Vestiges (trombone solo), Tripoly (tuba trio for Bowling Green State University), Deus Ex Machina (4‑tuba quartet for the USC Tuba Studio), and wind‑ensemble pieces for the University of Alabama (Deja Vu), UW‑Platteville (Summer Camp), and UW‑La Crosse (Ice Flow). He is a multiple year winner of the Dallas Wind Symphony Fanfare Composition Competition, and his music has been recognized by the U.S. Army Band, the Humboldt Brass Festival, and the International Tuba‑Euphonium Association. His full catalog of compositions and arrangements is available at eBrassMusic.com.
In orchestral settings Forbes has served as principal tubist with numerous regional symphonies across Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, and has performed with the Toledo Symphony and Porto Symphony (Portugal). Early in his career he held principal positions at the Aspen, Chautauqua, and Hot Springs music festivals.
Forbes holds a DMA from the University of Maryland, an MM from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a BM from Penn State. During his junior year he studied in Manchester at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music. His principal teachers include John Stevens, Toby Hanks, Gene Pokorny, Marty Erickson, and Mark Lusk.