Saxophonist Master Sergeant Steven Temme of Phoenix joined “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in August 2003. He was appointed assistant principal in August 2005.

Master Sgt. Temme began his musical training at age 10. Upon graduating in 1997 from Horizon High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., he attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where in 2001 he earned a bachelor’s degree in music performance, after studying under Eugene Rosseau. In 2003, he earned a degrée superior in saxophone and chamber music from the Conservetoire à Rayonnement Régional Cergy-Pontoise in Paris, France, where he studied with Jean-Yves Fourmeau.

Prior to joining “The President’s Own,” he performed a solo recital for the American Church of Paris’ “Ateliers Concert Series” and won first prize in the YoungArts National Arts Competition.

Master Sgt. Temme performs with the Marine Band at the White House, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, and across the country during the band’s annual concert tour. Notable performances include both William Bolcom’s “Concert Suite” in 2005, Jennifer Higdon’s Soprano Sax Concerto in 2011, Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Band in 2016, and Frank Ticheli’s Saxophone Concerto on the Marine Band’s 2019 West Coast tour.

In addition, as a member of a Marine saxophone quartet Master Sgt. Temme has performed at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and given master classes and clinics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York, the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He has also provided musical training to fellow Marine musicians in the Marine Forces Reserve Band, New Orleans; III Marine Expeditionary Force Band, Okinawa, Japan; and the Marine Corps Forces Pacific Band in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, with whom he performed John Williams’ “Escapades” from Catch Me If You Can. Master Sgt. Temme was also responsible for organizing a joint forces tribute to Adolph Sax on the bicentennial of the saxophone inventor’s birth with a chamber performance at the John Philip Sousa Band Hall in 2014 and he performs annually at the Navy Band’s Saxophone Symposium.