U of H Musician Playing in Round Top Festival This Summer Has Big Dreams

Musicians from all over flock to the small town of Round Top every summer to showcase their musical abilities to audiences at the Round Top Music Festival. Jackson Ingram, a University of Houston student, is no different.

“I thought Round Top was the best option,” Ingram said. “It’s in Texas, the reputation is amazing, and I thought that this would be a great festival for me.”

Ingram currently plays the French horn, but he took the roundabout route to get to playing the instrument.

“All my life, I wanted to play the trumpet,” Ingram said. “When I was four years old, I went to church and there was this amazing trumpet player there, and I fell in love with the trumpet. I decided then that I was going to play the trumpet.”

Despite his ambitions, when Ingram reached 6th grade and it came time to choose instruments for band class, a minor technicality pointed Ingram in a different direction.

“They said there were too many spots for trumpet taken,” Ingram said. “If I would have come ten minutes earlier, I would’ve been on trumpet. They said I could play trombone or French horn, and I chose trombone.”

Ingram has his band director’s persistent emails to his mother to thank for his eventual switch to French horn, the instrument that he is now planning on making a career out of.

“About a month later, my band director kept emailing my mom saying how good I sounded on the horn and that I should really reconsider,” Ingram said. “Eventually, I gave in. I practiced a lot, and while I was practicing, I eventually just fell in love with the horn.”

Following college, Ingram wants to be a performer.

“It’s something that really excites me,” Ingram said. “There’a always a bunch of auditions, from professional symphonies to regional orchestras.”

Ingram has had the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City three times in his young musical career, but there’s another city he hopes to play in one day.

“I really want to be in the Chicago Symphony,” Ingram said. “They are my favorite symphony.”