Bring your instrument (preferably horn) and take part as you are guided on improvisation development through melodic variation techniques with jazz education legend Chris Bruya. You may also be an observer if you prefer, but you’ll get more out of it by taking part!

Chris Bruya bio

Chris Bruya has been involved in music education since 1983, teaching high school, community college and university, the last 20 years at Central Washington University, retiring in 2021 as Emeritus Professor of Music. While at CWU he pioneered an improvisation sequence, built a small-group program, and the jazz big band was recognized as one of the finest in the country, performing at the Montreux, North Sea and the Next Generation jazz festivals and three JEN conferences.

In 2015 the band placed first at the Next Generation Festival, which included a performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival the following September. In 2015 the band was featured on Barney McClure’s CD Show Me!, and earlier on their Seabreeze Records 2008 release In A Mellow Tone. Most recently the jazz band won the undergraduate Asynchronous Recording category of the 2022 Downbeat Magazine Student Awards based upon work completed during Covid protocols, his final year at CWU.

There are over 150 live-recorded YouTube videos of the band, recognised worldwide as some of the strongest examples of the big band literature. Bruya has served on WMEA, OMEA and IAJE boards in both Oregon and Washington, has presented at numerous regional conferences, directed honor bands in Tennessee, New York state, Nevada, and Texas, while in retirement remaining in demand as a clinician and adjudicator throughout the Northwest and beyond.

In 2016 the Washington Music Educators Association honored him with the Collegiate Educator of the Year award, and in 2022 inducted him into the WMEA Hall of Fame.