ABOUT
I am a musician, educator, and cultural entrepreneur. Trained in Western classical, jazz, and world traditions, my musical focus is only part of my larger vision as the founder and Artistic Director of Common Tone Arts and the Director of the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston
With a wide array of musical activities, I strive to move seamlessly between soloing as a trumpeter, performing for world-class orchestras, composing new music, creating with the TORCH Collective, and producing socially conscious, multi-arts events.
I am focused on using music and imagination as a universal language to bring people together and celebrate our shared humanity. Much of this vision is embedded in my work via Common Tone Arts, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to inspiring positive change for our diverse world through arts education and music.
I am the incoming President of the College Music Society and have announced a new initiative: Grow. Create. Lead. This vision focuses on encouraging students to become cultural leaders by nurturing complete musicianship and engaging in socially conscious art.
MUSICIAN
Brian Kai Chin is a versatile musician on the international stage as a performer, composer, and producer. As a Yamaha Artist, Brian has commissioned and premiered many works as an international trumpet soloist and advocate for new music. Much of his artistic work is as a founding member of the composer collective and multi-arts collective TORCH. Originally trained as an improvising musician, he has spent the majority of his professional career performing in orchestras, chamber ensembles, early music ensembles on baroque trumpet, and in new music groups.
As a soloist, Brian has brought original and fresh American music for trumpet to six continents. Passionate about the process of generating new art and an advocate for composers, he has commissioned and premiered over forty new works for the trumpet, many recorded on two CDs for Origin Records Universal Language and Eventide.
As an orchestral musician, Brian performed fifteen seasons as Principal Trumpet for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra - including solo appearances with Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in Eb and J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg no. 2. He has performed hundreds of concerts with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Pacific NW Ballet, and Seattle Opera and in 2007, played a season with the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile.
As a recording musician, Brian can be heard with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Modern Orchestra, and a wide variety of recordings ranging from big band and trad jazz, flamenco, and post-rock. Brian has also appeared on countless movie soundtracks, video-games, commercials, and TV programs including Ghost Rider, Community, Call of Duty, and Crimson Skies.
As a composer, Brian draws equally from his love of progressive jazz, the 20th-century masters, and Americana. Most of his works are for the genre-bending ensemble TORCH, including major portions of Elements (2015) and Passages (2019). In addition, Brian wrote The Obamatorio (2016) for Soprano and Scrape Orchestra (Strings, Electric Guitar, and Harp), a four-movement song cycle based on the words of Barack Obama. He working on his first opera, American Phoenix. a story of a young Chinese-American girl caught between worlds.
EDUCATOR
Dr. Brian Kai Chin is the Director of the Moores School fo Music at the University of Houston and the former Chair of the Music Department and a Professor of Music at Seattle Pacific University.
A passionate advocate for evolution in music education, Brian strives to create pedagogical systems that can speak to the fundamentals of lifelong growth and creativity. He enjoys the challenge of helping musicians develop the mentality for creating the habits of deep practice necessary for mastery. An artist and activist, Brian believes that serving other artists can be the best vehicle for recruiting a new generation of conspirators committed to bringing people together through music.
“Intentional music and arts education for all people is perhaps the best way to create positive change for our future. This is an extremely exciting time to be creating!”
CULTURAL ENTREPRENEUR
I am the Founder and Executive Director of Common Tone Arts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to inspiring positive change for our diverse world through arts education and music. Common Tone Arts fulfills its imperatives with a variety of programs that include the Institute for Creativity, the Common Tone Music Festival, the TORCH Collective and more.
As a producer, I have created numerous events that bring artists and community together with new multi-art works that speak to our social consciousness. Since 2014, these works are framed by the TORCH collective on the Universal Language Project, which is simultaneously a new music platform and cultural incubator.
As a coach and an artist consultant, I get to serve others in an advisory capacity to numerous projects and organizations and works with individual artists as a catalyst to help level up their artistic careers. I have discovered a unique knack for helping clients advance their careers into the world of professional artistry.
My Projects
