He’s an International Grand Champion …Whistler ?!

Get your attention?

Here’s another alum with not your typical profession whose talents have appeared in TV and film!

Steve Herbst (C’67, Glee Club) has these impressive credits under his belt:

An International Grand Champion Whistler (2002)

The only man ever named International Whistling Entertainer Of The Year 3X (2003, 2004, 2005)

A member of the International Whistlers Hall of Fame (inducted in 2007). Note Bing Crosby is also a member.

Steve tells me that while at Penn, he was a 4-year member and Bass Section leader of the Glee Club and a frequent baritone soloist. He was also a “closet whistler” rehearsing Motown as well as Beethoven, Mozart, Lizst selections in his dorm rooms in Provost and Morgan towers.

Steve shares a fond memory he had with the late Bruce Montgomery:

“Bruce Montgomery had the Glee Club do two numbers which called for flutes or recorders but where he whistled those parts personally. One night, he came up dry and couldn’t get his whistle going. After that concert, I told him, “I could do that for you.” And he handed the whistling over to me. From then on, I did all the whistling. On one special occasion, I got to whistle with the Glee Club for Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s brother, Prince Mikassa and his princess at the William S. Payley House on the Mainline. So my public concert whistling career started at Penn.”

This month Steve will be traveling to Tokyo and Osaka to compete in this year’s International Whistling Convention and Competition plus 3 concerts.

Whistling concerts on the Penn Campus, at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in nightclubs and theaters from coast-to-coast including Birdland, The Cotton Club, and the Irridium Jazz Club here in New York City
Being featured in and narrated an award-winning feature-length documentary on whistling — “Pucker-Up — The Fine Art of Whistling,”
Appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show plus many other TV and radio stations, newspapers, and magazines around the world.
TV appearances including commercials and his whistling has been used by the “Malcolm In The Middle” sitcom