Biography

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer, arranger, and educator who performs with a variety of ensembles from across the musical spectrum. Hooten records and performs with Richmond-based No BS! Brass, who have released seven studio albums and EPs, one live album, and tour internationally. The group’s recent performances with the Richmond Symphony have featured Hooten’s compositions and arrangements. No BS! Brass was named to the 2015-2016 Mid Atlantic Arts touring roster. Hooten played lead trombone on the Doug Richards Orchestra album, Through a Sonic Prism: The Music of Antônio Carlos Jobim, which featured his pioneering work in multiphonics.

Hooten’s solo trombone albums, Richmond Love Call, and Isolation feature his multiphonics playing and overtone singing through original compositions, improvisations and jazz standards. Richmond Love Call was also placed on the ballot for Debut Album in the 6th Annual Jazz Critics Poll. Briefly setting the trombone aside, Hooten released an EP of beats and electronic music entitled OCCIPITAL1.

Hooten played trombone in the eight-piece group, Fight the Big Bull who was called “refreshingly original and, at many points, breathtaking” by All About Jazz New York. With this group he shared the stage with Ken Vandermark, Steven Bernstein, David Karsten Daniels, Megafaun and Bon Iver, including performances at Undead Jazzfest, Duke Performances, and the MusicNow Festival and at the Kennedy Center. Hooten serves as a house musician for Richmond’s Spacebomb Records, having made recordings with Mountain Goats, Karl Blau, Matthew White, Natalie Prass and Joe Westerlund of Megafaun. Hooten played trombone and composed for Ombak, described by www.bagatellen.com as “an extraordinarily unique group, a swaggering quartet that chomps and bellows like Albert Mangelsdorff fronting prog-rock.” Ombak’s albums, Framing the Void and Fan Bricks have earned rave reviews from local and national media. His participation in the Sounds of the South Project with Fight the Big Bull, Megafaun, and Justin Vernon has taken him to the Sydney Opera House as well as music festivals in the Eastern U.S. Hooten is a former member of the acclaimed salsa band Bio Ritmo, with whom he toured the United States and Puerto Rico and performed at such landmarks as Lincoln Center and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Hooten’s performing and composing earned him an invitation to the 2012 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music and he served as guest artist at the 2013 Mars Hill New Music Festival. In spring 2013, Hooten participated in the Tasmeem Doha Middle-East Art and Design Conference.

Hooten composes and arranges for small and large jazz and chamber groups, symphony orchestra, wind ensemble, chorus, marching band, and solo trombone/bass trombone.

As an educator, Hooten most recently served as Band director at Collegiate School in Richmond, VA. He formerly taught Jazz Orchestra II and Music Theory at VCU. He is the former director of the James River High School Jazz Band, trombone teacher at Hanover High School and assistant director of the Greater Richmond High School Jazz Band. He is a former faculty member of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts where he taught brass ensembles and courses on music theory, salsa music and Zen Buddhism. He has also served as an adjudicator/clinician at the Tri-State Jazz Festival at James Madison University and director of an Alabama All-State Jazz Band .