The ITA Board of Directors, Board of Advisors, and Council of Past Presidents has selected Jan Kagarice, adjunct trombone professor at the University of North Texas, to receive the 2008 Neill Humfeld Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has taught students of all ages and abilities for more than three decades with great success.

Her nomination for this award came from Denis Wick, legendary trombone player and pedagogue, who himself is the recipient of both the ITA Award and the Neill Humfeld Award. His letter of nomination included the following comments:

"Jan Kagarice is an exceptionally gifted teacher and has been a world-class exponent of the bass trombone. She is well-known to fellow brass players and teachers world-wide. Her pioneering work as the bass trombonist of the PRISMA Trombone Quartet has helped to influence many fine women trombonists in recent years. As a teacher, her record speaks for itself, but she has gained international renown in the brass playing community for her ground-breaking work in the treatment of focal task-specific dystonia. Many professional brass players have suffered from this little-understood affliction, causing a premature end to the careers of some of the most noted players in great orchestras around the world. Whilst ITA president, I wanted to draw the attention of members to focal task-specific dystonia, which has blighted the lives of so many fine trombonists. Although there has been no "quick fix" treatment for it, Jan has been steadily and very successfully treating FTSD victims for several years now. Her practical therapy of getting victims to cope with a complete re-learning of the complex functions of playing a brass instrument and creating completely new neural pathways while persevering with infinite patience is beyond praise. Using her unique experience, Jan has helped many players back to a professional level of playing and has contributed enormously to the knowledge of this distressing condition within the brass community."

Jiggs Whigham has commented: "In my experience of over four decades in the professional sector of performing and teaching, Jan Kagarice ranks with the most excellent pedagogues I have had the opportunity to experience. Her outstanding knowledge and success is recognized internationally by both professionals and students."

San Francisco-based trombonist Douglas Miner refers to Jan as "the most gifted, caring, insightful and effective teacher I have ever known. Not only did she help me solve a 25-year embouchure problem, but observing her instructional methodology has completely changed the way I look at teaching and learning. She is a jewel. Her work has the potential to revolutionize the way brass instruments are taught."

Former UNT student, Karen Marston wrote: "Jan Kagarice is an extremely progressive, wonderfully caring, and exceptionally musical teacher and performer. Drawing on her unique personal experiences, as well as her desire to learn from those around her, Jan has developed a refreshingly insightful and sensitive teaching style. She approaches each student with a perceptive mind, understanding that the needs of all people are not the same, and strives to discover the musician within them and the student within her. Jan does not simply recite the pages of a textbook, a phenomenon I believe to be rampant in the world of pedagogy, but rather searches for techniques that enable students to teach themselves and consequently others, throughout their lives. I consider this to be a great gift from teacher to student and have personally experienced exceptional motivation as a result. Furthermore, from a technical standpoint, her precision is exact to the point of demanding perfection first from herself, then from her students, while she maintains the unique ability to temper this with musicianship. In short, I have found that for most there exists a tragic gap between the trombonist and the musician, but Jan Kagarice is one of the few possessing the rare ability to bring them into equilibrium. Additionally, she is able to express herself in a clear and concise manner of an exceptional teacher. She has greatly enriched my life, both on a personal and a musical level."

Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic trombonist Jeremy Wilson offered these comments about Jan. "I've had the privilege of being coached by Jan in both solo playing and chamber music settings, and in both those arenas she has the amazing ability to see past the apparent and into the possible. Jan can not only present new information and new insights with unbelievable effectiveness, she also uses her wealth of knowledge and teaching techniques to help her students discover the potential that is already there. She is a master at seeing the forest through the trees, but only because she never runs out of ways to help people prune the trees to perfection. This is all possible (and I suspect very natural) for Jan because she has the heart of a teacher. She is smart and dedicated to what she does, but that all takes a backseat to the real reason Jan is a great teacher: love for music and love for people. If you understand real passion for music, you understand Jan Kagarice."