BRETT COPELAND
performer | composer | educator | sound engineer
Brett Copeland is a multi-faceted musician who is actively performing, composing, and teaching low brass and electronic composition. He maintains a freelance performance career in upstate New York and currently plays with tuba Symphoria (Syracuse, NY) and is a substitute for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He has acted as Principal Tuba with the Venice Symphony (FL), the South Shore Symphony Orchestra (FL), and the Ash Lawn Opera (VA). Brett is a founding member and tubist for Flower City Brass, a professional brass quintet established at the Eastman School of Music in 2016. He is currently the Marketing Manager for Empire Film and Media Ensemble (EFAME), an organization based in Rochester, NY, dedicated to live performance and original composition of cinematic music and contemporary media.
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A city's pounding heart, by Kitty Xiao (live video by Brett Copeland)
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SPONGE for trombone and electronics, written for Tim Taylor
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Syzygy for bass clarinet and electronics, written for Alexander W. Ravitz
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warrior for euphonium and electronics, written for Danielle VanTuinen
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Trois Musiq, written for members of Bent Frequency
As a performing musician, in addition to playing in orchestras he performs with Flower City Brass, a brass quintet based in Rochester, NY. Recently, Flower City Brass advanced to the semi-finals of the 2019 Philip Jones Brass Ensemble Competition and gave a series of recitals and masterclasses at universities in the spring of 2020. The quintet has attended and performed at festivals in Sweden and Germany in addition to performing as soloists with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. As a soloist, Brett has given recitals at numerous regional tuba/euphonium conferences, art galleries, festivals, and universities primarily programming electro-acoustic and contemporary compositions.
As an electronic musician, Brett primarily uses MAX/MSP and Ableton Live, and releases his "pop" music under the pseudonym DJ_ElectroTUBA. His electro-acoustic performances and installations usually include video elements which are built using Jitter. His works have been performed in art galleries and performance venues across upstate New York, NYC, Tampa Bay, and at the Sinus Ton festival in Magdeburg, Germany. He was the winner of the 2015 Electrobrass Performance Competition held at the University of Alabama, a finalist for the 2017 Electrobrass Composition Competition, and has since been involved with the coordination and planning of the biannual conferences, most recently opening the 2018 conference held at Brooklyn College with an electro-acoustic recital featuring his quintet, Flower City Brass, and the premiere of an original composition titled Suite Elektroniq for brass quintet and electronics.
As a composer, his music focuses on blending acoustic and electronic sounds, blending genres (both classical and popular), using classic electronic music techniques with unusual sound sources, and using the tuba in new ways. His compositional output includes solo acoustic works, chamber works, music for dance, and electro-acoustic works. Brett is also a composer of commercial music, having held a position as composer and sound designer for a video game company and composing as a freelancer for mobile apps and other independent projects.
As an educator, he has worked with beginning instrumentalists through graduate students both in academic settings and privately. He has taught low brass lessons with students in eastern Iowa, the Tampa Bay area, and students at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester. In addition to teaching lessons Brett taught the tuba methods course for music education majors for a total of six semesters at Eastman. In addition to teaching low brass, Brett has taught music technology and electronic composition both in his position as Teaching Assistant for the Eastman Audio Research Studio and privately. In 2016, Brett began working at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, MI, as a counselor, tuba player, and sectional teacher. In the summer of 2017 he took part in their Northern Winds International Tour to Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands.
As an avid promoter, performer, and composer of contemporary music, he has served as an administrative intern with Ensemble Signal, as Technical Liaison and Webmaster for OSSIA New Music a student-run new music organization at the Eastman School of Music, and as the President of the New-Music Consortium at the University of South Florida.
Brett received his D.M.A. from the Eastman School of Music in Tuba Performance and Literature ('20). While at Eastman he served as Teaching Assistant for both the tuba studio and EARS (Eastman Audio Research Studio). He holds a M.M. in Tuba Performance with additional studies in Electro-acoustic Composition ('16) from the University of South Florida and a B.A. in Music Technology ('14) from the University of Northern Iowa. His teachers include Don Harry, Jay Hunsberger, Baljinder Sekhon, Jeff Funderburk, and James Grant. Brett plays a Wessex Chicago Presence CC tuba and a Meinl Weston 45slp F tuba.