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About Bay Colony Brass

Bay Colony Brass is Massachusetts' premier performing large brass ensemble. Uniting virtuoso brass performers and its own imaginative arrangers, BCB bridges the Atlantic by combining the traditions of the British Brass Band with American brass ensemble, wind band and orchestral traditions.

Founded in 2000, Bay Colony Brass performs a broad range of repertoire spanning five centuries of brass and orchestral music, vocal music, Broadway musicals, and even the occasional pop song. In a two hour performance, BCB will often take you from the 1550s through and beyond the 1950s on a journey of musical enjoyment and enrichment.

Important Announcement

Bay Colony Brass is very pleased to announce the appointment of Susumu Watanabe as Interim Music Director, while Music Director Jerry Cadden is on leave.

Susumu Watanabe (composer, arranger, conductor and trumpeter) was born in 1972 in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. He moved to the US in 1999 where he attended Berklee College of Music (BM in Jazz Composition), the University of Massachusetts Amherst Graduate School, and the City University of New York Aaron Copland School of Music (MA in Composition). His composition teachers include Michael Abene, Jeff Holmes, Greg Hopkins, Hubert Howe, Adam Kolker, Jim McNeely, Jeff Nichols, Frederick Tillis and Phil Wilson. He studied conducting with David Callahan and George Monseur, and trumpet with Charles Lewis Jr., Jeff Stout, Mike Price and Toshio Shimada.

Mr. Watanabe is currently a music director of Tokyo Brass Art Orchestra (Tokyo, Japan). The TBAO's first CD album Antiphonemics: TBAO Plays Music of Susumu Watanabe was released by its independent label Susmusic Records in July 2011.

Mr. Watanabe has served as a music director for Fenway Brass Art Orchestra and UMASS Jazz Lab Ensemble, assistant director for UMASS Jazz Ensemble I/Studio Orchestra, guest conductor for the U.S. Army Field Band “Jazz Ambassadors” (Fort George Meade, MD), and Vermont Jazz Center Big Band (Brattleboro, VT) and was a member of BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop (New York).

Mr. Watanabe's works for jazz orchestra have been performed in the U.S., Japan and South Korea. He is the first winner of the National Band Association Young Composers Jazz Composition Contest in 2011. His winning piece Duodecim for jazz orchestra was performed by the United States Army Field Band “The Jazz Ambassadors” under the direction of Mr. Watanabe at the Midwest Clinic (Chicago, Illinois) in December 2011.

Mr. Watanabe also writes for various chamber ensembles, wind ensemble and symphonic orchestra. Most of his chamber music has been premiered by the Second Instrumental Unit (NYC, New York). A transcription for wind ensemble based on Dr. Frederick Tillis's Festival Journey for Solo Percussion and Orchestra was commissioned by Mr. Thomas Briggs of the U.S. Coast Guard Band (New London, CT). Mr. Watanabe has provided arrangements for Nick Foster and his Big Band Revue (Burlingame, CA). He will serve P&P Publications (Amherst, MA) as a staff arranger/editor, and is a member of Jazz Education Network.

His present commission for the Quincy Symphony Orchestra (Quincy, MA) will be performed under the orchestra’s Music Director, Yoichi Udagawa, on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 8 PM. The site is Lloyd Hill Performing Arts Center, Quincy High School, Quincy, MA.

Mr. Watanabe resides in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife Yumiko and his daughter Shioli.

If you have an event or venue that would benefit from a unique and unforgettable musical production, please contact Bay Colony Brass at the email below.